


The Black Star

by Ewok_Poet



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, Star Wars Legends: Corellian Trilogy - Roger MacBride Allen, Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types
Genre: Black Comedy, Censorship, Gen, Hutt crime lord, Music, Musicians, Politicians, Politics, Sacorria, Suspense, Thriller, smugglers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-30
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-03-20 09:39:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 37,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3645567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ewok_Poet/pseuds/Ewok_Poet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aloof and largely undecided about her future, 17-year-old Sacorrian Human Doria Vorr is spending most of her time arguing with her mother Maris, misjudging her friends and only confiding in her Drall neighbour Gredda. An error in her university application, a chance meeting with a talkative government official, Gredda’s sudden departure and an unexpected friendship with offworlders will lead Doria far away from the familiar routine of Sacorrian life and further to the world she never thought she could become a part of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ambitions

**Saccorata, Sacorria, fifth month of 3ABY/22 AE**

"My name? Doria Vorr. Profession I studied for? Agricultural technician. Biggest wish? To vacation on Vagran again someday...

...Where do I see myself in ten years? I don’t know. Ambitions? I never had them."

She feared that they could assume from her facial expressions that she was lying.

In reality, it was not that simple. To a certain extent, she did not lie. The brutal, pervasive truth is that she would often discover her ambitions long after whatever goal she was to pursue had long slipped out of her hands. In most cases, those goals would never find their way back to her, and they seemed normal to everybody else. In her young mind, the explanation, albeit abstract, was clear - whatever the fruits hanging way too high above were, the others must have really wanted them, they dedicated everything, every single droplet of matter to getting them.

Her graduation speech wasn't cut short by applause. It took about half a minute of awkward silence before Gredda started clapping her tiny furry hands from the front row. A couple of others shrugged and clapped along. They probably assumed that the Drall was hired to do this. Doria Vorr, relieved that she somehow didn't pay the high price of being honest, returned to the group of a couple of dozens of other students, all wearing the same long-sleeved red tunics and blue trousers and skirts.

"Dear guests, these were all thirty graduates of the First Agricultural Institute of Saccorata. The delegate of Their Majesties extends her warmest wishes to these promising young individuals and hopes that they all will serve our planet and contribute to our progress the best way they can.“

As the group was heading to the large tables nearly crumbling under the weight of food, the Selonian and Drall students were tucking their graduation clothes away. It was a warm day and the refreshment was gone very fast, prompting a group of waiter droids to restock.

Maris Vorr was not attending her daughter's graduation. They had a minor quarrel day earlier and thus were not speaking for what must have been the fifth time that month. Gredda, however, would not have missed it for anything in the world. The blonde-brownish Drall, wearing a black star pendant around her neck, had more patience than ten humans together and she would forgive Doria her shortcomings almost immediately. Furthermore, she did not have the same criteria for what a shortcoming was as mrs. Vorr did.

“You survived it. Congratulations, my friend!” she waved her short arms. Doria kneeled and hugged her.

“Thank you, Gredda. If anybody knows how unenthusiastic I was about this joke of a ceremony, it’s got to be you.”

“Shusssh! You never know who might be listening.”

“They can always ask what I am so unenthusiastic about if they care…and I am as bemused by what is inevitably going to happen tonight. They’re all going to get piss drunk and convince themselves they’re free, desirable and whatever else is common for…you know, young people.”

“And you…?”

“I hate whatever young people like!” the Human blurted out, taking a large bite of a grain bar covered in what looked nothing like real fruit.

“So, are you coming to the banquet Duchess Branna will be holding for the five of graduates from our clan? Tomorrow evening at seven.”

“I would not miss that for anything in the world. And tonight, I’m going to tuck myself in, listen to some good jizz and sleep…in no particular order.”

The two friends said goodbye to each other, as Gredda noticed the aforementioned Drall students and went to congratulate them. Doria continued in the direction of her home on the outskirts of Saccorata. The afternoon was more or less pleasant and she was rethinking her decision to have an early night, as the idea of staying up at least until the sun actually goes down suddenly seemed appealling.

"Doria! Wait up!"

That was Tendra Risant's voice. She increased the pace, pretending not to have heard anything, until a luxurious, bulky open-top groundcar stopped right next to her.

"I said wait up. Where you are going?"

"Where there are no people like you." she blurted sotto voce, then turned around, smiled and responded: “Home, to show mom this incredible piece of flimsi we just got.”

“Aren’t you going to the party?”

“Not feeling like it. Maybe in, say…8 years from now? I’m a busy person, you know?”

She turned again and was about to leave, when Tendra spoke again.

"I guess you’ll be free for other things, though? I thought you could teach me to ‘sheet one of these days."

"Excuse me..? I may be closer to poor than rich, but I don't clean bloody refreshers!"

"HoloSheet, I bought a licenced copy from DOBY. I need to make myself look a tiny bit thinner in my application holo for the Dorthus Tal University.“

"Aaah, HoloShed!" Doria snapped her fingers. She was confused so as to why would somebody like Tendra need to take an entrance exam either way, given how powerful her family was and that they could, perhaps, bribe anybody they wanted to.

“So?”

“Yes, I can help you. Ping me on HoloNet early next week or something. Now I really have to go.”

“Okay…you may want to watch out for those…”

Tendra and her two male companions stood still as their classmate was taking a shortcut through a dust corn field.

“…grain flies.”

The socialite had no idea what was going on. Her two friends, however, started giving their own points of view as soon as the red graduation robe disappeared among the long stalks.

"That disgusting little rodent is filling Doria's head with those...outlandish concepts of theirs. A female ruling the Galaxy someday, some unicorn types of things having built the Corellian system, the outside world being in the middle of a devastating, all-around war, the Triad not having any powers at the moment..."

"I don't think it's the Dralls. She's unhinged to begin with.”

“You are both ridiculous. Have you ever been lonely? Say, how many ‘right’ people can we hang out with and how many years left of freedom do we have until we’re stuck in Dorthus Tal’s administration jobs and elite parties, forever?”

“Tendra …wake up and smell the caf. You are living a strange fantasy and it’s time to cut it out. Haven’t these four years in Saccorata with all of the grassroots scum taught you anything? They don’t like us, they don’t want to mingle and they’re all crazy. You just happen to be desperate to befriend the craziest among them.”

…

"Vorr E, Doria. Honors: none." Maris was shaking her head, looking at the diploma bearing the sharp, red, star-shaped logo of the Institute.

"No honors, but I did graduate with the average of 100%. For honors, you’d have to be very serv...”

"Your father was right. Had you dedicated as much time to studying as you did to having your head in the clouds, you would have been in Dorthus Tall by now, working in administration."

Nobody asked her if she wanted such a thing in the first place. But the next sentence angered her further.

"And you could have married a government official."

"Yes, government...that exists. And it’s always been a dream of mine to marry young and die of ennui. Sure, mom."

Had this been somebody from her circle of not-really-friends-to-begin-with, they would have raised their eyebrows at the claim that the government does not exist, and had that been Gredda, she would have warned her not to say such things out loud. But this was mom, the one who never seemed to have listened to anybody other than herself, as if she was admiring the sound of her own, dramatic, high-pitched voice.

"This way, you may not end up being anything more than somebody repelling the grain flies off the rear of a huge, price-winning beast of burden."

"Don’t they have droids for such purpose? The A-55 ones?”

“Sure, A-55…wait a moment, I am not falling for that! Doria, you’re being a complete immature youngling again. Sometimes I wonder why I ever bother. Ever since your father died, I practically have no reason to live.”

Maris broke. Her daughter tried to comfort her, but she pushed her away.

“Get out of my sight. NOW!”

Doria went to her room, pulled down the blinds, kicked off her shoes, changed into a mismatching tracksuit pants and a T-shirt and climbed up in the bunk bed. She pulled out the datapad, activated an illegal slicer program for bypassing the government surveillance and was about to spend the rest of the day reading up on a couple more obscure Outer Rim planets. Everything was better than crying herself out to sleep and replaying the entire day; which – to her – seemed more brutal than any holovid one could come across among the shelves in the heavily controlled rental across the field from the Vorrs’ home.

The HoloNet was down again. Recently, it had been happening so often that she lost count. She could have got up out of the bed and gone to the living room, where her mother was probably watching some cheesy holocomedy and laughing out loud as if she wasn’t claiming her life had no purpose come half an hour ago. She could have, but she didn’t feel like having another argument.

**Dorthus Tal City, Dorthus Tal Island, Sacorria, a week later**

Code:Blue was bored at work. Getting used to sitting in the office all day and wearing a suit instead of his beloved limmie jersey was something he was taking hard. He was willing to help people, but getting used to the real world and realising that, despite his idealistic views of it, it might have been worse than he ever thought, was taking some time. The truth was slowing him down and, sometimes, coming closer to wiping off the broad smile off his face, or at least reducing it to a stiff-teethed spasm. This time, he spent the whole day stamping requests, pleas and similar documents. And his former co-star, now a fellow administrative, was nowhere to be seen.

"Are you sleeping at work again, Crybaby?" somebody spoke right into his ear, with the last word yelled out loud. Blue squeaked, as if the words were spoken through a loudhailer. Code: Red was standing at the window, pointing to the sky outside, as if something was going on.

"Heh, last time I checked, you were a human representative, not a Drall. You sure there's no Drall folk in your family lineage? That one of your grandmothers…"

"Very funny, Red."

"Lighten up, Crybaby, lighten up! It's a nice day and we have only fifteen minutes left. Your family is taking a vacation, so why wouldn't you take your chances for once and hit a bar with me? We don't play limmie no more, we don't have to be sober...I swore to all possible deities of all possible species that someday I'll get you drunk on some aged Sacorrian whiskey!"

Blue was offended. "Who do you think I am? No, no and for the last time, no. I sent Dani and the younglings on a vacation so I could get as much work done as possible and then, eventually join them at the seaside. Also, we're not done for the day, by any means. We have to go through the list of students from the FAIS applying for scholarship and there are some artists needing an approval to exhibit their work on our planet.“

Red was not too keen on getting work done, but he sat down.

“Are there any hot female students?” he gacked the datapad and started searching through data, “Oh, poodoo, this one is a Selonian, yet wearing something that looks like a petticoat. My eyes! I need a new pair of eyes. Hmmm…Tendra Risant. A local who, for some odd reason, studied at the FAIS. I like her hair. But something seems to be wrong with her body!”

“Red! How dare you say that, the Gods have made everything and everybody beautiful!”

“This time it’s not my pickiness. Look at the holo before you assume that I’m a nerf herder, won’t you?”

Blue reluctantly gave a second look to the flickering holoimage of a young woman with strawberry blonde hair. Her arms seemed unnaturally thin, same for her legs.

“I can see what you mean right now. She could, however, be a model. Models have…arms…and legs.”

“I truly don’t understand you sometimes. The part I fail to understand most is how you managed to get married and father three children.”

Blue sighed. Every other day at the limmie field back in the days looked like this. Nothing changed since they got hired. His partner in crime was abusive from day one. He quietly continued reading the documents for the day, doing the best he knew to be a proper, hard-working Sacorrian. For the next twenty minutes, as he was typing on his datapad, Red was starring through the window, occasionally catcalling the women passing by, knowing that they could not spot him. The main government building was fifty stories tall and all the windows looked identical.

“This is it. I am bored. See you after the holidays, Crybaby!”

“How about you help me with this one? A pronk band named Dee…”

Red had already slammed the door. Blue was by himself once again. He shrugged and continued reading the e-mail out loud, to himself.

“A pronk band named Deeply Religious would like to take part in the Cobble Stone Square Youth Music Festival this year. The plea was signed by all three members – their human singer and quetarra player Charon San Valorum…I wonder if he is related to that politician, that playwright and…hmmm…Anra Reken, their bass mando player from Duro…and their Ortolan drummer, Kaabalt Nubes. I am not sure what genre of music pronk is, but I am sure they mean well. They sound non-threatening to me. Young people need some good role models!”

Without any further thinking, he copied and pasted the approval template and attached a couple of mandatory flyers promoting the Triad, the famed Sacorrian whiskey and the artisan crafts of the Cobble Stone district of Dorthus Tal City.

...

**Nuba City, Nubia, minutes later**

Pronk bassoon player Anra Renek was surprised with the e-mail that just flashed on the screen of the datapad. His friend Kaabalt Nubes, who was until then sitting in an exceptionally large armchair, watching sports on HoloNet, got up.

“What happened? I hope I didn’t move my bum for nothing.”

"Approved! We were approved! This makes no sense; it's Sacorria we're talking about!”

“How did this happen? What does the holosignature say? Who approved you?"

"Somebody who signs their e-mails with Code:Blue."

Anra looked at his stocky friend and he could swear that his trunk just went up in the air. They were not good at reading each other’s expressions, with one of them looking permanently sad and the other being extremely lazy when not in proximity of food or his beloved set of drums. However, they could both read Charon San Valorum, their Human frontman, who had just entered the rehearsal space, carrying three cold bottles. His face lit up, as he jumped up and down.

"No way! No way! Holy Mandalore varactyl with constipation! That guy was a limmie player until, like...last year! He and that other guy, Code:Red were my favourite people ever. They beat the poodoo out of Naboo in the Galactic Cup finals six years ago and he is responsible for that weird winner dance everybody is doing nowadays."

Anra was not too familiar with limmie, but the “weird winner dance” seemed familiar from somewhere. Has he heard of this person before?

“These are the three very last bottles of Aldeeran beer, by the way,“ Charon said as he was re-reading the e-mail over Anra’s shoulder, “They must be worth thousands of credits, but I don’t care. We managed to fool the most notorious administration known to Core Worlds! And this time next week, we will be drinking the famed Sacorrian whiskey, anyway!”

For the next couple of minutes, they were chugging their beer in silence and then Koobalt spoke again, with the same excitement, as if he was unable to believe that their complex fraud paid out, for once.

“So, Taungsday, the 12th of this month, at the Cobble Stone Square in Dorthus Tal. I am still surprised by your courage, pal. We are risking a lot of by choosing such a strange place to show our disobedience.”

Charon winked at his friend and continued to peel off the adhesive flimsi label from his beer bottle. He did not seem to think that his plan was outrageous, in any way.

“You see, Koob, sometimes one needs to opt for the strangest scenarios possible in order to achieve what is necessary. Sacorria is, after all a neutral planet. If we don’t give a kriff about the Imperial Board of Culture, we may as well not give a kriff somewhere where we can gain alies…”

Anra was suspicious. “How neutral is neutral in this case? Aren’t they dependent of the Corellian Diktat?”

“Aren’t we? Let me help you: we are not. All the Nubian corporations made this a pretty harmless place to be in the face of this awful, awful war. The same way the Galactic Empire needs us for our technology, the whole sector needs Sacorria for its food and booze. Right? Now, let’s rehearse. If we’re to shock them, we need to be shocking enough.”

Charon slammed his beer bottle against the sonipool table, grabbed the quettara and played the riff to “Ooh, It Bites!”, the song that prompted the Imperial Board of Culture to take interest in the Nubian pronk scene.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anra Renek is a Clone Wars orphan, yet his name means King of Laughter in Durese. Isn't life ironic sometimes?
> 
> I would assume that I don't have to explain the name Koobalt Nubes, especially not when Max Rebo's real name is actually Cerulean Phantele.
> 
> While Deeply Religious are legends-canon, nobody ever elaborated on them; so I made them resemble an influential band from our planet. As the time passes by, it will become clear which band it is, this may depend on your knowledge of music. I am reinventing some actual punk scenes from our planet and some other bands as I go.
> 
> Here be fanon:
> 
> First Agricultural Institute of Saccorata - Farmschool in the biggest city (but not the capital and the administrative centre) of Sacorria
> 
> DOBY - a joint venture of two corporations from Nubia, known for their ground-breaking, Galaxy-wide famous software Holoshed, as well as Stylus, HyperThreads, Thunderoo, HyperFilmsi. Coming up by 4ABY: HoloMatinee and Starfield - HOLOSHED, BUT FOR HOLOVIDEOS!!!
> 
> Holoshed - A renowned tool for sophisticated holography editing, the use of which among amateurs is often frowned upon by professionals. Though DOBY was never in direct control of the Empire, it has been rumoured that the Imperial Intelligence is using a special, advanced version of Holoshed for psychological war. Holoshed is so popular that a neologism "holosheding" ended up in the University of Coruscant dictionary of modern Basic; meaning "to enchance one's features by the use of Holoshed".
> 
> pronk - punk in GFFA. The instruments in a pronk band would be quettara (of Zabrak origin, according to Wook), a bassoon and, well, good old drums.
> 
> sonipool - my poor attempt at reinventing pool, billiard, snooker, whatev'


	2. Addendum to chapter 1: Deeply Religious

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deeply Religious articles in the Empire's own Byblopedia and the independent HoloPedia

**Deeply Religious**  
_(from BybloPedia, the source of free knowledge in the Galactic Empire from the Byblos University)_  
  
Deeply Religious is a band that the members of Imperial Youth should not be listening under any circumstances; because their music is loud, full of expletives and libellous in nature. The band's music was banned by the decree no 1039/20AE and anybody caught in possession of their work is to be prosecuted.  
  
The band is composed of two filthy semi-sentients, Anra Renek and Koobalt Nubes and a Human traitor, a reject-all-Imperial and a son of a former revolutionary, Charon San Valorum.  
  
The responsible Imperial Youth is hereby encouraged to notify COMPNOR of any sightings of Deeply Religious; as well as to report all HoloNet outlets playing their music.  
  
\-----  
  
**Deeply Religious**  
_(from HoloPedia, the real HoloNet encyclopaedia provided by the Rebel Alliance)_  
  
Deeply Religious is a pronk band from the outskirts of Nuba City, Nubia. Throughout its run, the band has been a trio with a constant line-up composed of the Ortolan percussionist Koobalt Nubes, nicknamed Master Koobs, Duro bassoon player Anra Renek and Human singer and quetarra player, Charon San Valorum. Valorum and Nubes were both born in Ronto, near Nuba City in 9 Gr:S.  
  
Deeply Religious were originally part of the prolific pronk scene in Nuba City's famous 1337 Club, located at the 1337 Corellia Day Street. Their first two records,  _Angry Teenagers_  and  _Growing Pains_ were released with the independent label RontoRiot Records. The later sold surprising 50 million copies around Nubia and the rest of the Corellian Sector.  
  
At the point their major label debut,  _Poodoo!_  was released Galaxy-wide on Teta Tunes in 31 Gr:S, Deeply Religious were already an established and popular act on the local scene. Poodoo! was both a critical and chart success, selling ten billion copies and resulting in the band’s first Galactic tour.  
  
After their first Galactic tour, Deeply Religious released a self-titled compilation of selected songs from their first two albums, to which The Imperial Board of Culture reacted by placing their work on the infamous list of Scarlet works.  
  
The band subsequently released two albums on their own label. Advanced Explosives Handbook and Emperor of Air and Darkness are both known as bold anti-Imperial statements, with a lot of the songs namedropping the Imperial authorities, including Emperor Palpatine himself. Shortly after the rlease of Emperor of Air and Darkness, the whole of Deeply Religious' back catalogue was banned from selling in the HoloNet digital stores, on open markets and other places by the Imperial Board of Culture, due to their music being "fast, loud and dangerous". The physical copies of their albums have been destroyed in a raid.  
  
Despite the negative publicity surrounding them, Deeply Religious are often cited as one of the bands that contributed to reviving pronk in a new, contemporary form, next to other Nubian acts, The Younglings, Rimmers and Force Rejects.  
  
  
**History**  
  
**Formation and RontoRiot years**  
  
In 24 Gr:S friends Charon San Valorum and Anra Renek, 15 years old at the time, formed a band they named Deeply Religious, the prominent starship designers' son Koobalt Nubes joining them on drums after having been the only being to answer the ad they wrote on pieces of flimsi all around their Design School.  
  
Unlike Nubes, Valorum and Renek did not come from rich families. Pulott Valorum was murdered in a battle between an early anti-Imperial faction and the Imperial troops long before his son became a musician. Seemingly, Anra Renek is a Clone Wars orphan, adopted by a Human family in Ronto.  
  
There are a couple of stories so as to how the band name came to be, but the prevalent opinion of the music critics nowadays is that it's a play on one of the common insults towards the Force sect that Valorum's deceased father was rumoured to be a supporter of, though himself not Force-sensitive.  
  
The newly-formed band first performed at now-famed Shorn Stabilizer cantina, where Valorum's mother used to work as the chief of staff. Ten standard days later, they were offered to record an album on the independent label RontoRiot, led by the local DIY pronk scene legend, Seemor Starwatcher. Their first two albums, Angry Teenagers and Growing Pains were released on the label spanning two standard years inbetween; and most of their early songs deal with girls and finding one’s place in the world.  
  
At some point prior to the release of  _Growing Pains_ , Nubes family provided the younglings with new instruments and their touring starship, a beat-up old Nubian which Valorum named "Sticks". At the end of this tour, Valorum also got into a fist fight with the Steamy Hot Wasaka Stew frontman Antonio Nokaarbe, whom he had previously mocked in one of the first Deeply Religious songs, _Nokaarbe Is Not Handsome_.  
  
  
**Poodoo! and Galactic Breakthrough**  
  
After the Nokaarbe incident made headlines of the newsflimsi around the Galaxy and Nokaarbe himself claimed he was “assaulted by a tiny madman” to the notorious sludge reporter Yilda Lami; Deeply Religious caught the attention of the Empress Teta-based major label Teta Tunes. A representative then invited the band to Cinnagar to sign a contract; and though they had previously refused offers by Corellian Sector’s major labels, they jumped on Sticks and travelled to the Deep Core planet. Antares Dain, a previously unknown producer specialising in heavier, quettara-dominating music was assigned to work with them  
  
Deeply Religious’ major label debut,  _Poodoo!_  was released Galaxy-wide on Teta Tunes in 31 Gr:S, accompanied by holovideos for Cloudcity [sic], Garbage Disposal (Dianooga, Eat Me!) and Get Away. Poodoo! was both a critical and chart success, selling ten billion copies in the first year from its release. During this time, the band had a brief rivalry with their fellow Nubian pronks, The Younglings, notably with their leader, Rexon Froz, otherwise a xenobiologist. Froz was quoted as saying that Deeply Religious lacked the true pronk sensibilities and that their work had no traces of activism, with most of the songs being about finding oneself and dealing with females.  
  
The release of Poodoo! was followed by the band’s first-ever Galactic tour, including some stops that were deemed to be controversial by general public, such as Dac. Deeply Religious were famously denied landing on Kashyyyk; with the official version of the decree stating that they could not have performed for non-sentients such as Wookiees and that there was no sufficient Human population to perform for.  
  
  
**Decline, Ban and Exile**  
  
One standard year after Poodoo! was released, Deeply Religious have opted for a different sound and a different direction in their career. In an interview with Beat, Charon San Valorum stated that having such a large audience is a privilege and that he and his band mates wanted to make sure that, now their voice is heard, they will focus on social issues in the Galactic Community; as opposed to the confessional, self-loathing songs that marked their earlier work and resulted in their rise to stardom.  
  
Following this, the band released a self-titled compilation consisting of selected songs from their first two albums. The Galactic community, otherwise unaware of Angry Teenagers and Growing Pains, was thus introduced to their more politically-charged early works, with titles such as Twi’lek Dancing Girls dealing with slavery and exploitation of non-Humans. The Imperial Board of Culture reacted by placing both the Deeply Religious compilation and the Poodoo! Album on their list of Scarlet works.  
  
Deeply Religious responded by self-releasing two politically-charged albums,  _Advanced Explosives Handbook_  and  _Emperor of Air and Darkness_. This resulted in a raid of Teta Tunes warehouses, destruction of the physical copies of their albums; as well as the brutal COMPNOR-arranged murder of Seemor Starwatcher, the man who discovered Deeply Religious, while he was taking a trip to Coruscant. Teta Tunes officials were pressured into dropping the band off their label and publicly denouncing all of their work for being “fast, loud and dangerous”, in order not to suffer Starwatcher’s fate. The band’s work was also removed from all widely-known HoloNet stores and placed on the Imperial Board of Culture’s list of Banned works.  
  
It has long been speculated that the band's multi-species nature was another factor that contributed to their ban and that Valorum received an ultimatum, asking him to replace Renek and Nubes with a Human bassoon player and a drummer; which he refused; claiming that the two men suggested as replacements were COMPNOR agents.  
  
Currently, Deeply Religious have been rumoured to be touring independent clubs all around the Core. If you're interested in seeing them live, contact your local independent promoters and make sure you're using the known HoloNet blockers if you’re holostreaming their music. Pronk’s not dead and you know it.  
  
  
**Discography**  
  
Angry Teenagers (RontoRiot, 27 Gr:S)  
Growing Pains (RontoRiot, 29 Gr:S)  
Poodoo! (Teta Tunes, 31 Gr:S)  
Deeply Religious (Teta Tunes, 32 Gr:S) [compilation]  
Advanced Explosives Handbook (Self-released, 35 Gr:S)  
Emperor of Air and Darkness (Self-released, 37 Gr:S)  
  
**Angry Teenagers**  
  
Unless otherwise stated, all lyrics by C. Valorum and all music by Deeply Religious.  
  
01 Saw Her at the Archives  
02 Please, Don't Go  
03 Gamorrean Hard Case (lyrics and music by A. Renek)  
04 Here I Am Not  
05 Deeply Religious  
06 Torch Song  
07 Nebulae  
08 Being 17  
09 Trying to Fit In  
10 Nokaarbe Is Not Handsome  
11 The Diktat's Pretty Cousin  
12 I Am An Angry Teenager  
  
**Growing Pains**  
  
Unless otherwise stated, all lyrics by C. Valorum and all music by Deeply Religious.  
  
01 To My Future Girl, In The Stars  
02 Just Another Art Form  
03 Truth, What Truth  
04 A Shuttle to Sacorria  
05 Freedom of Speech  
06 Please, Hurt Me (Lyrics and music by K. Nubes)  
07 A Podracer's Prostitute  
08 She Is Out There, Somewhere  
09 Saving the Universe (Again)  
10 Twi'lek Dancing Girls  
  
**Poodoo!**  
  
Unless otherwise stated, all lyrics by C. Valorum and all music by Deeply Religious.  
  
01 Bored Imperial Youth  
02 I Will Kill You All  
03 Wermo  
04 Cloudcity  
05 Nuba City Sidewalks  
06 Babe is Gonna Kill Us All  
07 Garbage Disposal (Dianooga, Eat Me!)  
08 For a Former Lover  
09 Wanna Do Nothing With Me?  
10 Get Away  
11 Identity  
12 Former Fake Friends (lyrics and music by A. Renek)  
13 Good Luck with Him  
14 KYAKY [Kriff Yourself and Kill Yourself]  
15 Koobs Mumbles (hidden track, lyrics and music by K. Nubes)  
  
  
**Deeply Religious**  
  
Unless otherwise stated, all lyrics by C. Valorum and all music by Deeply Religious.  
  
01 Deeply Religious  
02 Freedom of Speech  
03 Gamorrean Hard Case (lyrics and music by A. Renek)  
04 Just Another Art Form  
05 Saving the Universe (Again)  
06 Torch Song  
07 Twi'lek Dancing Girls  
  
**Advanced Explosive Handbook**  
  
Unless otherwise stated, all lyrics by C. Valorum and all music by Deeply Religious.  
  
01 Illusions of a Good Kid  
02 Heavy Blaster Blues  
03 Having Fun With Detonite  
04 How Do They See Anyway (Stormtrooper's Dilemma)  
05 HoloNet Lover  
06 So Much for Tact  
07 Durasteel Eyes  
08 DIE, DIE, DIE!  
09 Where is Everyone?  
10 Sublight Jizz (Instrumental)  
11 Sign of Hate  
12 For You  
13 Alone in Hyperspace  
14 Reject All Imperial  
15 How to Get Banned (Have a Mind)  
16 Rotten to the Core (Empire's Crumbling)  
17 So Long (I Miss Her)  
18 His Cyborg Actor  
  
  
**Emperor of Air and Darkness**  
  
All lyrics by C. Valorum and all music by Deeply Religious, apart from track 06, which was written by C. Valorum, A. Renek and K. Nubes.  
  
01 EMERGENCY EMERGENCY  
02 A Drunk Night on Devaron  
03 Lots of Banthasith  
04 (Imperial Uniforms) Look Bad On You  
05 Lost Promise  
06 Ancient Republic  
07 Fancy a Vacation on Kashyyyk?  
08 Not Your Kind  
09 An Ode to Tarkin (Not)  
10 Speeder Bike Races (Speed Kills)  
11 Ooh, It Bites!  
12 Empire Day Rituals  
  
It is assumed that the album name is a pun on "Queen of Air and Darkness", a card in sabacc.  
  
**Style And Influences**  
  
Just like all the other bands of the pronk revival movement, Deeply Religious are said to be heavily inspired by the first wave of pronk at the times of Clone Wars, led by bands such as Conflict and Kriff Blasters. Jax Loodiee, the former frontman of Kriff Blasters has denied support for Deeply Religious, claiming they are not “true to their roots” and added that he “heard better music upon pulling water in his ‘fresher”.  
  
Nevertheless, Deeply Religious still embrace Kriff Blasters as one of their main influences; next to glam-jizz groups of the decades prior to the Clone Wars.  
  
Curiously enough, Emperor of Air and Darkness was heavily influenced by the protest lyrics of Dalyn R. Baobab, the legendary songwriter from Manda; who is currently in exile on Roon with the rest of the Baobab merchant fleet. The band members were quoted as saying that they hope Baobab has heard their new album and they would like to play on the same stage with him someday.  
  
  
**_See also:_**  
Charon San Valorum  
Nuba City Pronk Scene  
1337 Club  
Seemor Stargazer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is no article on Wook on the Shorn Stabilizer cantina, but there is one about its owner.
> 
> The Deeply Religious compilation, the two albums after it and the song Ooh, It Bites are legends-canon and you can read about them on Wook. I put Ooh, It Bites on an album, added more songs to the two albums and changed one song's name. The additional songs, the band's history, member names et cetera are all fanon.


	3. Chapter 2 - One Bad Day

_**Saccorata, Sacorria, early morning** _

Doria Vorr was refusing to come out of the ‘fresher. That was rarely ever happening after what was a pretty much standard quarrel at the Vorr apartment. The only difference from the usual Vorr arguments was that this time there was a good reason for Maris Vorr to be angry. Unfortunately enough, the way she saw things was the way she usually would have.

"Are you trying to tell me that you’re going to deliberately fail the entrance exam?" Maris yelled at her daughter again.

"No, mom! I was not even invited to take it, as of now. I sent my application and all, I have proof that it was sent. Maybe they didn’t even consider it!”

"Are you nuts? Do you even know how much we invested in your education?"

"We? As in you and...who else? School has been free so far. Studying at the Dorthus Tal University is free, too."

“It was, but tell me, Doria…who was preparing your meals? Who supported you on your way there?”  
Doria was trying to remember how the “support” looked. If her memory served her right, it was mostly about yelling, threatening not to allow her to do what she wanted and making her feel bad for not achieving the highest grades possible in the subjects that were not her strongest suit.

She could recall that one failed exam that cost her sitting at home when her parents were taking one last trip to Vagran to visit the great aunt Larax. She remembered that one time she could have seen the Max Rebo band perform, but her father angrily tossed a wallet full of coins on the floor and asked her what was the point of that.

And there were so many situations where she felt like she would have died if she had cried again. That was the reason she was not crying anymore and opting for hiding.

She shook her head, grabbed a large dust corn protein bar and sat on the fresher, her legs up on the tube.

“Doria, answer me!” Maris yelled from the corridor again. “Who supported you?”

“What does that have to do with this? I could have built us a droid to help with chores; you never let me do so!”

“Are you saying that you don’t appreciate my efforts? And with your attention span, you would have built us an assassin droid, not a maid one!”

“No, but…”

“I accept no ‘buts’, Doria! You are not to be trusted with things.”

Maris grabbed her purse and headed to the balcony. The yellow air taxi was waiting for her.

 

**_AARIS (Agricultural Appliances Research Institute of Saccorata), later that day_ **

Gredda was standing across the large factory hall from a workmate of hers who was working on a droid. Her shift was over.

She ditched her lab coat and the helmet and placed the shiny black star pendant around her neck again. The last day of the week was not a work day on Sacorria; and she was looking forward to what was coming up – the annual Grain Night, the holiday when Sacorrian Drall were celebrating their arrival to the planet. According to official history, they were descendants of a noble Duchess.

According to what most of them did not know, yet Gredda was perfectly aware of, they were con artists and gamblers brought from their home planet of Drall, as well as Corellia and the Twin Worlds of Talus and Tralus; in order to serve as prison guards for Humans and Selonians in the planet-wide penal colony, the black spot in history that preceded modern Sacorria.

Once out of the building and about to mount her speeder, Gredda spotted a spark of colour in form of chestnut-red hair among many brownish-blonde heads. She crossed the street and greeted her friend’s mother.

“Oh, hello, Maris! Going back home from the museum? I can give you a ride!”

The woman did not seem in the mood for talking, though she acknowledged Gredda with a single nod and some incoherent rumbling.

“What is wrong? Did you and Doria argue again?”

No response again.

“Maris, please don’t ignore me. It was not long ago when you said that you always trust me with everything. Plus, my aunt expects to see you at tonight’s special dinner party for the friends of the clan.”

“I am not coming. I have things to do. Housekeeping and all.”

“Why didn’t you ask Doria to build you a housekeeping droid and a mouse droid? It’s simple and all the FAIS students are capable of it. She had built some great ones in the class, just ask lect…”

“Listen, Gredda. Doria lied to me again. She claims she was not even invited for the entrance exam!"

Gredda shook her head. “Maris, Maris, Maris…Doria hated the last year at the FAIS so much that she dedicated herself to passing the norm for the Dorthus Tal University to the point where it was almost an obsession. Why do you think she would have sabotaged her own goals?”

Maris ignored Gredda’s question, turned around and hailed another air taxi.

Meanwhile, at the Vorr apartment, Doria was doing some slicing, when a chat window popped up.

 
    
    
    // BlasetreegoatAU : Seamadeofglass chat session started at 1700 GST, 5:29:33 Gr:s //
    
    BlasetreegoatAU: hai
    
    Seamadeofglass: hai…v v v angri todai
    
    BlasetreegoatAU: whai?
    
    Seamadeofglass: something hapnd w mai universiti application. no response, whatsoeva. :/
    
    BlasetreegoatAU: wut
    
    BlasetreegoatAU: wut
    
    BlasetreegoatAU: wut
    
    // BlasetreegoatAU sends a big Wookiee hug to Seamadeofglass //
    
    Seamadeofglass: donai. i applied, d same dai i fixed tendra’s holo. she got her response, mi…nothing. krfn nothing!!!
    
    BlasetreegoatAU: wut d kriff! How cud dey do dat 2 u!!!!!
    
    Seamadeofglass: mi mom doesn’t beliv mi. she thinks i neva eva appld.
    
    BlasetreegoatAU: ur mom is a pc of work.
    
    Seamadeofglass: ai agri. 
    
    // Seamadeofglass shakes the screen, like a Rebel //
    
    Seamadeofglass: g2 go…somebodi is at the dock.
    
    // Seamadeofglass has left the conversation. //  
    
      
    
    

Doria disconnected from HoloNet and went to see who docked to their apartment’s balcony. She was relieved to see Gredda and not her mother.

“What are you doing here? What is going on?”

“Doria, we’re going to Dorthus Tal City. Now. I bumped into Maris, she told me what happened and I have figured out what is going on.

"You know how it's like with us Vorrs. Grain Night is in a couple of days. Holidays are the best times ever..." Doria paused for a bit, "...for going to bed, putting the cover over your head and regretting the day you were born. Something always pops up - whether it's mom missing dad, whether it's what I have or have not done during the last couple of weeks, months, years. When there is no real reason, mistress Maris Inesedam-Vorr will make one up.“ Doria broke down and started kicking the wall behind her desk.

Gredda patted her friend on the shoulder. "There, there. Don't worry about it. I happen to know who is responsible for the student applications. This will be easy."

“We will be late to the dinner party!”

“I know, but my aunt has excused me many times when I worked late, so this should not be a problem either. Let’s catch a shuttle to Dorthus Tal. Now.”

...

**Thirty minutes later at the Censorship and Scholarship Office, Dorthus Tal City**

Underneath the blank expression she had practiced for years, Doria was looking around the office. Whoever was supposed to be sitting on the chair across the room from hers was not there and, by the look of things, the one who greeted her with a broad smile was not fully aware of his own responsibilities. Adorned in perfectly ironed shirt and dress trousers, with a matching jacket, he got up from his desk and greeted her.  
  
"Hello, comradette..."  
  
"Vorr."  
  
"Comradette Vorr, would you like GR-3 to bring you anything?" he asked. "Zherry juice? Vitamin water? Caf?"  
  
"The only thing I am here for is the only thing I want, comrade..."  
  
"Joak Bluestar Shykrill Glisse. People usually call me Code:Blue, of course. I used to be a...no, please, don't do that!"  
  
Doria was already imitating the choreography Code:Blue was known for from the planetary team's days as the Galactic Cup winners. "And that's how babies burp, right?" She snickered.  
  
"GR-3, bring her one of each!" The administrator snapped his fingers at the musteline protocol droid. She muttered something in Mandaba and headed to the turbolift. "And, of course, I'll go get your file while she brings you the drinks!"  
  
Doria looked on as the administrator ran through the office space. He was almost making her dizzy. He walked like a background dancer in operas and babbled something in the voice similar to the one of a prepubescent boy.  
  
"Did you say Korr?"  
  
"No, Vorr. Doria Vorr."  
  
Code:Blue reached for a dusty pile of flimsi from the top shelf of a large storage cabinet. The Selonian-esque droid returned with three different glasses and placed them all in front of Doria. She shrugged and picked the glass of zherry juice. It was overwhelmingly sweet, making her teeth hurt. No wonder everybody at the government offices building was behaving like this.  
  
"Why is this necessary?" she asked. "Isn't everything in the state computers, anyway?"  
  
"W-we…we tend to rely on both methods, there is always a chance we might get t-things wrong!"  
  
"Isn't that chance below what would be considered a standard error?"  
  
"One n-n-never knows, com. Korr…"  
  
"Vorr!"  
  
"Vorr, sorry again. Imagine if an enemy of our planet and the values we hold so dear would slice the government computer system and get a hold of everybody's files? It's better to be safe than sorry! GR-3! Bring me some of that zherry juice…and a dust corn pudding with caramel topping, please! Make it two puddings, of course!"  
  
"This whole building will turn into a cake someday." Doria thought to herself and reclined in the chair she was offered earlier. She might have fallen asleep for a while – once Code:Blue spoke again, he was in her face and too loud.  
  
"Ms K…Vorr?"  
  
"Eeek!"  
  
"Sorry. I found your file, finally. The letter vev was in the last drawer, with wesk, xesh, yirth and zereth. I could've never guessed!"  
  
"Figures..." Doria rolled her eyes. "So, what is in my file?"  
  
"Doria E. Vorr, born on the 26th day of the Progressmonth, eighteen years ago. Graduated from the school no 4 of the district 1986, also known as Northern Sacorrata, of course, four years ago. Graduated from the First Agricultural Institute of Saccorata, some weeks ago, which is not in the computer, but it is here, thus p-p-proving my point. Currently unemployed, qualified for the job of the agricultural technician. No brothers or sisters, parents are the deceased AARIS engineer Elesandre N. Vorr and the Museum of Corellian Sector History custody, Maris I. Inesedam-Vorr…the latter has been listed as a potential traitor for keeping her maiden name. The subject herself is known for hanging out with the members of the R'vanye Drall clan, headed by Duchess Branna...but she has also been seen with faithful servants of Their Majesties a lot. Most likely not dangerous. Not very likely to graduate from university due to lack of harmony in the family, of course. Possible candidate for job in the…I can't read this last part, it has been censored and us minor employees don't know the code."  
  
Doria propped herself in the seat. Her eyes were now wide open.  
  
"Are you sure you were supposed to tell me all this? The part about my mother being a traitor and plans to make a good citizen out of me?"  
  
Code:Blue hit himself on the forehead.  
  
"It happened again!"  
  
"What happened again?"  
  
"The reverse theory. Oh, no, I said it. I cannot talk about it, please, forget that I have said this!" He started running around the office again, eventually stopping by the window to open it and catch a breath. The Dorthus Tal Sea and the maximum-security prison to his left, and the Watchtower Base to his right would have made the bones of any civilian not employed in the government shiver. But, for whatever reason, he always thought of them as serene, reassuring him that he was doing things right.  
  
Once he turned around, he found himself face to face with a light-furred Drall female.  
  
H-h-how did you get in?"  
  
"Behind GR-3. She was carrying something that was more sugar than dust corn pudding and I figured out who's on call today. "  
  
"Who are you?" Code-Blue took his portion of the pudding, his hands shaking. "Of course..."  
  
"Gredda. My aunt is one certain Duchess Branna of the R'vanye clan, I am sure you have heard of her. And we both happen to be very fond of this young Human female here, and her mother, too!"  
  
Gredda sat on the window pane, throwing a quick glance at the buildings and the sea visible from where they were sitting. Then she smirked and closed the window.  
  
"The only building in Dorthus Tal City other than Their Majesties' residential complex that the Watchtower Base cannot surveil is this one, right?"  
  
"Ummm...right."  
  
"Let me rephrase everything for you, comrade Glisse. This here is my friend, a sympathiser of the R'vanye clan. She submitted an application for the basic studies at the Dorthus Tal University and she never got a response."  
  
Code:Blue looked at the Drall sitting at his absent colleague's table and going through the data on the terminal.  
  
"I am sorry." He broke. "This was my mistake, of course. My colleague, whom you may know as comrade Code:Red was looking at holos of somebody called Tendra Risant, I remember that name well because it reminds me of the comrade Jhorn Risant working in the education department on the floor below..."  
  
"That would be his daughter. I helped her write her application letter and I taught her how to tweak her holos. I was probably right behind her in the queue…"  
  
"And the last file had the NOE stamp on it! Not-obedient-enough, of course!" Code:Blue was still crying, his head hidden by his hands.  
  
"Now I see why they call you 'Crybaby', Glisse." Greeda shook her head. "You made a mistake, the system you are using seems to be flawed, but how do you think you're going to solve it if you continue crying like that?"  
  
He thought a bit, drying his tears with the sleeve of his expensive dress jacket. Then he checked something on the datapad on the empty desk next to his. Minutes later, his smile was there again.  
  
"There is a spare place on the University of Vagran in Abatore intended specifically for a Sacorrian student! Since Ms K is not considered to be obedient enough for the Dorthus Tall University and Sacorria and Vagran have reasonably good relations. That would, of course, imply that she is obliged to return to Sacorria and serve the government and Their Majesties once her studies are over. But there is only one little problem…no accommodation left at the Sacorrian dormitory building on the campus."  
  
Doria's face lit up. She was about to say something about her great aunt living in Abatore, but Gredda coughed loudly, prompting her not to.  
  
"Any other accommodation options?" The Drall was now more or less in the administrator's face.  
  
"Twenty kilometres from Abatore is, of course…"  
  
"Anaslinea-Hoc?" Doria interrupted Code:Blue again. "The newish spaceport?"  
  
"Yes. The town itself is small and has an arid climate, no more than seven thousand inhabitants and less than hundred years of contemporary history behind it. However, numerous tunnels below the surface, extending under the Kaza'an Gulf as well as locations within the town itself hold a lot of secrets about the past of the entire planet. Of course, we would relocate both you and com. Inesedam-Vorr there and find you a house to live in, then making sure she is employed in their local museum. She would, of course, continue to work with her parent institution. I would have to talk to her about this, of course."  
  
Doria shivered at the sole idea of somebody having to convince Maris of anything.  
  
"You? Are you sure?"  
  
"Of course. My colleague is away. There is no other option. Since it will take some time to relocate you, we'd better start come tomorrow. I will travel to Saccorata after breakfast and you will wait for me, introduce me to your mother and then I am going to explain this to her."  
  
"Is there any other option?"  
  
"I'm afraid not. Unless we place you in this university, the only other option, of course, is operating the droids on dust corn fields or a shuttle to Sarcophagus."  
  
"Fine, comrade Glisse." Gredda adjusted the black star pendant. "We will make sure that comradette Inesedam-Vorr doesn't reject the proposal."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At this point, it may be clear which real life person inspired Code:Blue.
> 
> If you can figure out where the K instead of V came from, you are a genius. Nah, you're just well-read.
> 
> Watchtower Base can be found on Wikipedia.
> 
> Abatore is one of the biggest cities on Vagran, mentioned in Suns of Fortune, but it does not have a dedicated Wikipedia page.
> 
> "Their Leaderships" is a reference to the Sacorrian Triad.
> 
> The rest is fanon, from places and political bits to the first name of Tendra Risant's father.


	4. BUY SAYGO!

The sun was setting over the bright red, perfect roofs of Saccorata's residential districts when Doria and Gredda got out of the repulsortrain station closest to their street, on top of the tallest residential building. As they were climbing down the stairs to the first available pedestrian level, Gredda was thinking out loud about what had just happened.

"Tomorrow is going to be interesting, to say the least."

"Yeah. I pity Code:Blue already. But not more than I pity myself. Let's see which one of us will cry more."

They entered the pedestrian lane about 30 metres above the surface. Near-translucent wire fence on both sides was covered in vines, creating an illusion of the plants floating in the air. Small insects were pollinating the red, orange and yellow flowers. A flower-shaped dispenser would spray grain fly repellent in preprogramed intervals. The lane itself was covered with neatly-trimmed grass that seemed to be of two different shades. The lighter shade was shaped like writing and, indeed, if one was to read it vertically, in the direction of walking, it seemed to be making sense.

PROGRESS AND ORDER!

PRACTICE SELF-DEPRECATING BEHAVIOUR!

BE A VIGILANT CITIZEN AND REPORT ANY INDOCRINATION FROM OUTSIDERS!

BUY SAYGO!

Doria glanced at the fourth and last piece of grass-writing.

"What is wrong with this planet? Everybody buys Saygo. Is it because they even write messages about it…in the grass?"

"Remember, I did my technician practice in the Saygo factory in Curheg and then at their headquarters in Sublata back in the days. Saygos are the cheapest landcars available in the entire Galaxy. Or maybe not, I bet they're making something more affordable in the Corporate Sector; but we were made to believe that nothing can be cheaper than a Saygo. For some reason, it goes well with the self-deprecating behaviour, stairs in place of some turbolifts and so on. But sure, they're not really reliable. I wouldn't go anywhere near, say, areas known grey bears."

"You say go and it doesn't go. Right?" Doria stuck her tongue to the writing.

They continued through the flowering lane, which then declined to the 20m level. Large holographic signs were pointing pedestrians to directions of the rounded apartment buildings in the nearby streets. The intersecting lanes seemed busier than the large one they just came from. Neighbours were sitting in adjacent hovering cafes, watching sports games on viewscreens.

"Just a second, Gredda." Doria went over to the nearest café and approached two older men. "Is the qualifying session for the Tralus race over yet? Who's starting first tomorrow?"  
"Haylo Cipesz, of course. He's the greatest!"

"No! Jax Novo is the greatest. Haylo Cipesz has nothing on him; he is not a fair player."

"Oh, great." The other, younger man joined the conversation. Doria recognised him as one of Tendra's friends. "Another teenage girl who demands justice for poor Jax Novo, just because he's handsome and regularly appearing in Juicy Blabber and Teen!Impz."

"I don't read Juicy Blabber and whatever the other thing is, I have not heard of it. I buy only dedicated podracing holos and those about speeders in general."

"That's what all teenage girls say. Do you have a secret Jax fanclub in some basement or what? He's basically a jizz-wailer podracer, that's the thing!"

"Kriff off. We're allowed to like the same things as you do." 

Gredda pulled Doria's hand. "Let him go. It's not worth it, we will be late."

Doria shook her head and followed her friend. She didn't understand the fuss, but decided to kept quiet so she wouldn't sound like Maris. This dinner party was just a standard one Duchess Branna would throw every other week for her friends. 

Nothing compared to the Grain Night. The Grain Night was the highlight of the year, for everybody who was friendly with the R'vanye clan. Held at the beginning of the summer, in honour of the peasant family that first welcomed the clan to Sacorria, the celebration would often last until early in the morning. And Duchess Branna knew how to party – she knew the best local musicians, the most breath-taking Selonian war dancers and, being the great leader that she was, she would bring some of the most influential bohemians of the Saccorata's Art Committee along. Even the grouchiest of the grouches – such as Maris Vorr – loved the Grain Night. 

…

The next morning, Code:Blue arrived from Dorthus Tal City. Just like all true, dedicated state censors, he used the plain repulsortrain and not a speeder of his own, in order to promote self-deprecating behaviour to citizens. Doria was still in bed after a miserable podrace where Jax Novo crashed and Haylo Cipesz won; and she forgot to wait for the state censor at the repulsortrain station. Luckily, Gredda had foreseen this and at ten hundred, she was at the docking balcony of the Vorr apartment. Maris had muttered that she does not have her make-up on yet and the guest had to wait for full twenty minutes.

"Comradette Maris Vorr? Prog! My name is J…"

"The limmie player known for the baby burp thing? Wasn't your skin darker?"

"No, that was my team mate! The better guy, of course."

"Comrade, you were always less annoying than him."

"I-I guess I will take that as a compliment, of course?"

"Yeah…" Doria in PJs was standing at the end of the corridor leading to the den. "That's how my mother compliments people. Also, mom, he's a state censor or something now."

Maris nearly screamed. "What is a state censor doing at our home?"

"You should prepare yourself – and him – some caf." Gredda sat on the couch and turned the viewscreen off. "Make sure his contains more sugar than anything else. This is going to be a long morning." 

…

Two standard hours later, Code:Blue was on the verge of crying. This would have never happened to Code:Red, he knew how to deal with the unbreakable comrades and comradettes. What exactly was Maris Inesedam-Vorr made of, that not even sugar, the precious sugar, could help him come up with a solution that would stop her from what she was now doing – lamenting over her, to him, pretty much harmless relocation. Sure, she was aware that she had to say yes to this proposal, for both her and her daughter's sake; but she seemed to be taking way too much pleasure in criticising him over what he could not control. 

"Me? To live in that kriffhole and not Abatore, one of the most beautiful cities in the Sector?" She looked through the window, not turning her face back towards Code:Blue, Gredda and her own daughter. "This planet has completely lost it. We need to blow ourselves up or something"

"Of course…I mean, of course not, comradette Inesedam-Vorr!" Code:Blue's spasm of a smile was present again. He was slowly starting to realise where Doria got her sense of humour from. The only problem was that it did not even closely resemble humour. On the contrary. 

"Comradette Vorr?" he turned to Doria. "I have brought you something special, to cheer you up, of course. Two free tickets for an event that we had to relocate to Saccorata from the Cobble Stone Square in the capital. I even named it after an event that's popular in this part of the city, of course. At least that's what I found in my documentation."

Doria grabbed the ticket out of his hands, solely to have Maris take them away from her.

"Is this supposed to make us feel better? The design of these tickets makes me want to punch somebody. Too much purple."

"It's not changing anything about your mood then, mom." Doria calmly pulled the tickets and, once in possession of them again, started reading the print. "Grain Night Fest Featuring Deeply Religious, Steamy Wasaka Stew and…Dadanna? H-how does this even add up?"

"It was my idea." He grinned. "Everybody on Sacorria loves pretty Dadanna! The best singer around, of course!"

"Wait, this means I won't be able to attend Duchess Branna's Grain Night banquet!"

"You will join us later. Better for me. When you're present, you're embarrassing me so much. The way you hold the fork and…"

"Yes!" Code:Blue cut Maris in the middle of the sentence. "This way you get two Grain Nights. The one everybody can get into…with a ticket and the mythical one that…wait? The two of you can attend the actual Grain Night?" 

"Glisse!" Gredda got up from the couch and walked towards him, the black star pendant reflecting the light. "I told you that my aunt is the current leader of the R'vanye clan. You can't seem to remember what you were doing yesterday."

"O-of course! I mean, no…I do remember yesterday!" 

"And no, you're not invited to the Grain Night. The way things are going, we will probably throw another dinner party in Maris and Doria's honour and you can come to that one, but not this one."

He frowned.

…

Tendra Risant's comm beeped, just as she was getting out of the 'fresher. The code displayed was one she couldn't recall getting anything from for a long time.

"Prog, Tendra." The monotonous voice on the other side definitely belonged to the one she thought was calling and, apparently, it wasn't a mistake.

"Doria! What a surprise!"

"Tendra…this may come across as weird, but I have two tickets for the Grain Night Fest. Would you go with me?"

"Is Antonio Nokaarbe going to be there? Antonio of SWS?"

"Unless his band fancies performing without him, yes."

"Antonio! By the light of Sacor, Doria, I love you!" Tendra was dancing around the room at this point. "I am going to see Antonio again!"

"So, that's in two days. Where are we going to meet?"

"I am going to pick you up at four. Dad bought me a Saygo!"

"At four? In the afternoon?"

"No, at four in the morning. I need to be as close to Antonio as possible! I was in the hoverlounge at the Coronet City concert and I couldn't get a good look of his muscles with my own naked eye." 

"You're kidding, right?" Doria was not amused.

"Not at all. Antonio Nokaarbe is…wow, you have to look him up on HoloNet if you're not familiar with SWS already. I l-l-love him! I could totally…marry him! Hey…where did you go? I guess somebody is jamming the calls again. Ohwell…"

Ten minutes after she had accidentally hung up on Tendra, Doria came across some holovideos of SWS and Antonio Nokaarbe himself. He looked like a small piece of furniture and, apparently, everybody thought he was Kiffar. Since the BybloPedia article only referred to his band as being on the Galactic Empire's Scarlet List; she activated the slicers' bypass to the uncensored network and looked him up on HoloPedia. He sounded like a scoundrel, fond of debauchery and the list of his former girlfriends, most of whom posed naked with him at some point, was so long that it took her three tries to open it. Since when was Tendra Risant, the girl who practically grew up under her father's desk at various government offices, fond of such egomaniacs? 

And why were Gredda's ideas so weird sometimes? There had got to have been a better solution to get accommodation worthy of Maris' wishes. A better solution than being forced to invite Tendra Risant to this festival and then nagging about asking her dad for help once they were on the barrier.

Just then, a bubble with the latest news from the Galaxy's top podracing outlet formed across the screen.

JAX NOVO SACKED BY THE EMPRESS TETA RACING TEAM DUE TO POOR RESULTS.

Fed up with everything, Doria slammed the lid of her datapad against its keyboard and looked at the Jax poster on the wall of her room.

"My poor wookiee-ookiee, what are they doing to you? You…you don't deserve this."

She completely forgot to check for information on Deeply Religious.


	5. Destination: Anywhere

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sacorria-Vagran-Aurea pipeline is fanon. Since Sacorria itself is on the Corellian Trade Spine, *something* had to be connecting it to two nearby planets that aren't.
> 
> Darse Loor is a cousin of Kirtan Loor.
> 
> Vagran - not much on Wook, but everything about the existence of Estainia Hunting Grounds, the cities of Abatore and Thaeme is from Suns of Fortune. You can have a look at this preview image for more information.
> 
> Anaslinea-Hoc, however, is fanon. Basically, it's a village (calling it a "town" would be a compliment) located on and below the hills, with about 20km of shoreline, most of which is a beach with black sand. Central Spaceport of Vagran is located next to it and, on the other side of the gulf is Abatore.
> 
> Sarlacc on Vagran is fanon, too. It seemed fitting with what's been written about the planet in Suns of Fortune.
> 
> I use "Vagranite" as the denonym for Vagran.
> 
> E-11 - the standard Stormtrooper rifle
> 
> Sublata - Fanon. A 200 000 people OC city located in a gorge on Sacorria
> 
> Tunnel worm - These apparently live on Selonia and roam through tunnels.
> 
> "Bloody grey bear" - Sacorrian grey bear.
> 
> Kriffslider - one of my common in-universe swear words.

Sacorria - Vagran-Aurea pipeline, around the same time as previous two chapters

Darse Loor glanced around the cargo department of his ship. He was relieved. The Twi'lek dancing girls and about a dozen furry specimens in chains were finally sleeping. The stun setting on his E-11 blaster rifle was truly the best thing since the invention of ice-on-a-stick. All those inferior beings whined way too much, as if twenty plus standard years of the New Order had not taught them anything. And he just wanted them to sleep.

Being related to one of the Corellian Sector's resident COMPNOR agents and an Imperial liaison officer sure had its own share of perks. For one, he was allowed to get away with this - without the possibility of ending up in one of the numerous Imperial Prisons.

"Captain Loor?" one of the Stormtroopers in charge of the shipment patted Darse on the shoulder. "Is it true that these things are being transferred to Blobbo the Hutt and not the actual Imperial Prison in the Estainia Hunting Grounds?"

"That's not an appropriate question, Lieutenant…"

"Geelmen. Aerenna Geelmen, sir." The trooper removed the mask and let her hair down. Darse was surprised to find out that one of the minions assigned to him was a zherry-haired woman with heavy eyelids and a captivating smile. "You can close your mouth now."

"I heard that last name before." Darse thought to himself. He coughed, trying not to look at the woman licking her lips, and did his best to sound like an authority figure again. "What do you think would allow you to ask such a question, Lieutenant Geelmen?"

"My older brother could find out. You know…Aryan Geelmen. I am pretty sure you have heard of him."

She batted her eyelashes, but it was in vain. At this point, she became instantly unattractive to Darse. Geelmen. Geelmen. Of course that Darse had heard of Aryan Geelmen, the notorious xenobiologist from Xyquine II. That man was going beyond what he considered moral, and he did not have high criteria to begin with. Geelmen once reported a Sacorrian doctor he worked with at a laboratory in Sublata for an inappropriate relationship with a near-Human, which was somewhat understandable. But after that, he got quite mad. He was involved with risky cybernetics-related experiments on war orphans and it has been said that his ways were unethical, even in terms of what would be allowed under the Tarkin doctrine. The last Darse heard of him, he was to be dealt with, by no one other than Darth Vader himself.

However, this woman just implied that Aryan Geelmen was…alive. And possibly endorsed by the Emperor Palpatine himself. He could have been kriffin' anywhere, doing kriffin' anything. This sly woman just put Darse in a position where he was obliged to give her the correct answer. The idea of the older Geelmen sibling finding out about somebody flirting with his sister and then refusing to give her the information she wanted immediately made him think of being tortured in a laboratory on a remote location. Somewhere where nobody would hear him scream.

He coughed again and gave response to the grinning lieutenant.

"So, yes. Most of these convicts are going to Thaeme, to be transported to the prison. That is what everybody knows. What they don't know is that, before we head to Thaeme, we are dropping a dozen Selonians and four busty Twi'lek maidens at the Central Spaceport of Vagran, as a hand of peace extended to Blobbo the Hutt. We may need his connections with other Hutts in future and this was what we came up with."

"And if these slaves were not registered, nobody will know. I think I get it." By this point, Aerenna was whispering in Darse's ear. "Blobbo the Hutt will love his new Twi'lek dancers, once they come round, of course. But why does he need so many Selonians?"

"They're low-maintenance, he said. They don't need actual beds; their fur never gets too long to require a trim. And they cannot mate with each other, due to the females being infertile, so there won't be younglings."

"I have dealt with many Hutts before, captain Loor. This one sounds strange. Why wouldn't anybody want to own minor beings from the day they were born?"

"He is…very clean, so I was told. He cannot stand younglings' barf all over the place and his twin majordomos are not the kind who would deal with it easily." Darse shook his head. "Anyway, I have to hit the 'fresher one more time before we've landed. See you later, make sure these beasts don't wake up."

"What? Do you think Blobbo will smell your…?"

"Shut up. I really have to go!" Darse ran out.

Aerenna glanced at twelve stunned short-furred humanoids lying on the floor. She was taught that Selonians could not function outside of their dens; that they were lost like fish out of the water without their queens. This was one of those rare moments where she doubted what she had learned at the Imperial Academy. This bunch had rioted all the way from Selonia, almost making the starship lose its curse in the middle of the solar storm coming from one of the uninhabited systems in the sector. Maybe they were actually sentient after all?

Her brother firmly believed that all of the species proclaimed to be non-sentient had special talents and that, the closer to Humans they were, the more chance there was that they could be used as organ donors. It all made sense to her. Kriff her parents for thinking Aryan was a black nerf; he was got to be right, all along.

She ran her hands through the fur of the nearest Selonian with shiny, yet rough grey fur. She stopped short of his waist, realising that she had been staring at his brown, torn trousers for too long. Then again, he was probably not likely to wear any clothes once at Blobbo's. If Darse was not willing, perhaps this creature was?

"Back off, bugslut!" he muttered through his sharp teeth. "Blast it!"

Aerenna gasped and jumped back.

"Your life is going straight to the sarlacc pit, babe. Why not have some fun with me, for one last time before that?"

"I'd rather have some fun with a sarlacc. I said blast it."

The Selonian jumped up and kicked the Stormtrooper in her stomach, just as Corellian Jewel came out of hyperspace. She hit her head against the wall. He checked her neck for vital signs. She was alive and likely to come round at some point. He had to think fast, but before anything else, he removed a piece of his tattered tunic and tied it around her mouth, gagging her with a ball of fur.

With the blaster rifle in his hands, he looked at his eleven unconscious friends, regretting that he would not be able to take them along. When the captain fired at them, everybody other than him was hit. His pretend-to-be-stunned stunt worked, for once. He wished they would wake up and attack the other three Stormtroopers somehow, then escape to the nearest town. But he had to make a choice and the only option was to save himself from being executed before even being subjected to whatever torture Blobbo had in store for his slaves. He had heard of Hutt crime lords and what he knew sounded worse than being eaten to death by a tunnel worm in a dead-end.

He swallowed a lump and wiped some sweat from behind his ears.

"Now, what if I stick her there?"

Looking away, he removed the woman's uniform. He found Human bodies to be disgusting and this one, with pale white skin and a narrow waist was the worst he had ever seen…just where did she get the idea that he would be up for a quickie with her? Had she ever seen a proper, plump, fertile Selonian? With one last shrug, stopping himself from spitting on her, he shoved her through the 150x150 cm chute. She still had her comm and if there were no dianogas on the ship, she would've probably survived. And perhaps she was willing to have her brother attach a pair of lekku on her head, either way?

Just then, Darse Loor came back. He seemed to have adjusted his hairdo while at the refresher.

"Babe, we are about to land. Would you care to help me out?" He grinned, and then realised that his underwear was hanging out. "Oh, kriff."

"Babe?" Is that how Humans were flirting? Disgusting!

"If you need help wiping yourself, no. I am not going to help you."

Darse frowned. "So, you don't like me anymore because of my bowel issues, lieutenant Geelmen?"

The Selonian hoped that nobody could see him shiver underneath the heavy Stormtrooper armour. "When I need information, I need information, captain Loor. It's all business, after all."

"Fair game, lieutenant Geelmen. Fair game."

At this point, Darse really, really looked as if a tunnel worm had chewed him and spat him out. Or - as the Selonian thought Humans would say - he was on the verge of tears.

A trio of Stormtroopers arrived before he could witness his captor humiliate himself over what he thought was rejection.

"We have landed at the Anaslinea-Hoc spaceport, sir." One reported to the captain. The other was observing the limp bodies on the floor.

"They don't seem to have woken up. Shall we just carry them to a speeder outside?"

"I do hope that you told the local authorities that we need a special speeder for our cargo and that you…" Darse flicked the invisible credits between his thumb and index finger.

"The man working in this shift refused to take credits. Instead of it, he presented me with a small pack of cigarras and some sort of a kabob. Apparently, today is a holiday."

"Niice, lieutenant Bargle. Let's make the best out of it. I would not mind spreading the bribe credit in two if people are bound to help us today, according to whatever stupid tradition."

"Five, sir." The Selonian heard himself say. "Or I'm telling Aryan that you scammed me. I could also tell your cousin Kirtan Loor about it."

Darse was close to hating Aerenna Geelmen at this point. He was hoping for a quckie and what he got was betrayal spreading like a deadly virus.

"She's got to be more than a Stormtrooper. She just knows too much." He thought to himself.

They got out of the starship. The landing strip was located right next to what appeared to be an endless black sand beach, in the middle of a large gulf. Some mountains were visible on the horizon, disrupting the perfect picture of the sea becoming one with the skyline. On the coast, houses were scattered on a nearby hill, with a particularly large one dominating the sight.

What looked puzzling to the Selonian was a large transparisteel barrier topped with a laser fence, rising up to seven metres in the air, leaving a very narrow strip of the beach between the spaceport and town in the distance. Just what was located there?

"I see your brother hasn't taught you anything about Vagran, Aerenna." Darse stroked his chin and gave the Stormtrooper a side-eye. "Nearly every community on this planet is surrounded by barriers, whether they're physical, chemical or plain energy screens. Vagranite non-sentients put "wild" in "wildlife", so to say...and they can kill you dead, yup."

"Of course I knew that…babe."

Darse could no longer take this woman's mixed signals. She could have as well been making faces at him underneath that helmet! He wished to be out of here, now. The hours he was scheduled to spend negotiating with Blobbo the Hutt sounded like a party with the Emperor's personal courtesans, in comparison to Aerenna's constant baiting. And it seemed that she had gotten worse after she was left alone with the ship's precious cargo.

 

"Let's empty the garbage from the chute into the disintegration unit and go." He looked at the group, who had finished putting the slaves in the front trunk of a bulky speeder. "These pesky locals won't allow us to leave the spaceport before we've gotten rid of what could be potentially dangerous to the planet's wilderness."

The local man with a cigarra in his mouth, who seemed to be the only person working in the morning shift that day, had a group of heavy-duty droids pull the chute cartridge out of the side of the starship. He looked on from a small repulsorlift platform, as they were emptying it inside of a large mobile garbage disintegration unit.

"Don't burn me alive, kriffslider!" somebody yelled. The man gasped, dropping the cigarra out of his mouth, when he realised that a pale hand was pulling him from inside of the round entry pipe.

He pulled out a slim, red-haired woman in her negligee.

"Bloody grey bears!" the spaceport employee hit his head against the lever. "I almost disintegrated a pretty lady! We need to give you a chemical shower, now!"

"What is going on up there?" Darse put his palm above his eyes and looked up. "Holy bantha poodoo…Aerenna? Then…who just rejected me?"

The three Stormtroopers looked on, as the fourth threw himself into the water.

"After the intruder, you fools! It could be somebody from the Rebel intelligence, somebody who lived in our garbage department for the last four hours!"

Lieutenant Bargle nearly jumped in the water after the rogue Trooper, when he noticed rough waves coming from the distance. Only then did he remember that there were fifteen, not sixteen bodies lying on the floor of the ship's cargo department.

"Captain Loor. That's one of your precious gifts to Blobbo, running away!"

"What the kriff?" Darse kicked the speeder's chassis. "And the three of you cannot count to sixteen? Start the search! We need to find this lower form of life and teach it a lesson. You know, we can always tell Blobbo that we accidentally killed one of his slaves when we stunned them."

"No sir…I mean, yes, sir…I mean, no sir!" Bargle looked on, as the intruder, apparently an excellent swimmer, got out of the water and crawled through the sand, straight below the durasteel barrier. Seconds later, there was screaming that sounded like the Selonian slaves rioting right before they were stunned…and a Stormtrooper helmet was fired out of something located in the middle of the restricted area, followed by a loud burp. It landed straight in front of Darse Loor's feet.

"What did you just gives to the only sarlacc on Vagran?" the local worker dropped yet another cigarra out of his mouth. "We feed it a special diet; we don't allow it to eat something that could make it sick. On the second thought, I wants those credits. There is no way I is able to explain this to our authorities, not without losing my job!"

"Call off the search. It's not like anybody could have survived that. One piece of scum less is a job well-done, after all. And that slimey Selonian will be slowly digested for a long time to come. Kirtan will be proud of me" Darse grinned, glancing at Bargle and the other two Stormtroopers. "Now…where exactly is Aerenna getting this chemical bath?" His grin was painfully wide at this point. "I wonder if her brother would approve of what was, in the end…my…flawless…extermination plan."  
…

About thirty minutes later, the speeder departed to Blobbo the Hutt's mansion in the hills. Elsewhere, a Selonian in tattered clothes was limping and crawling his way towards Anaslinea-Hoc. He was nearly swallowed by the unexpected Sarlacc and only quick thinking, that Humans were sure he was not capable of, saved him from doom. Selonians were accustomed to quickly removing their clothes when they were not in presence of Humans, so getting off the heavy Stormtrooper armour just at the moment when the slimey tentacle was about to grab him, was a result of a lifelong habit. Nothing more.

He reached a dusty street leading to what seemed to be the waterfront. A small park was separating the street from the black sands beach. Four buildings with way too many balconies and a three-storey dark green hedge next to one of them were closer and closer. He had to reach one of them, somehow. Had he been given some water and food since his capture on Selonia, this would have been so much easier. And he was starting to doubt himself.

"If I am seeing a giant hedge, then I must be nearing my end…"

Sadly, his feet, no longer listening to him, were dragging him in the direction of the hedge. There were so many legends his den's storytellers told to younglings about afterlife, but none of them mentioned any kind of gigantic shrubbery. The leaves smelled so good, almost like berries. He got close enough to caress one of them, and then he dropped.

Seconds later, a Human female with shortish, greying hair, wearing a flower-patterned blouse and a long, indigo blue skirt ran out of the green whatever. She picked the blaster from the Selonian's limp hand and, before he knew, had him at point-blank range.

"I normally don't greets my visitors like this, but you…you is suspicious!"

"Don't shoot!" he yelled. With one last droplet of strength, he managed to add. "I escaped the slave transport."

The woman tilted her head.

"Why do you owns a blaster, then?"

"Long story. I was kidnapped on Selonia and they were taking me and eleven more males from my sept to somebody called Blobbo the Hutt." He clearly didn't like the rifle that bought him freedom being placed against his forehead. "I escaped. It's a long and strange story. Am I a refugee now?"

She was now smiling. Whatever he had just said, she finally believed him.

"We's all refugees here. We were almost killed with fire. It's a long and strange story. What's your name?"

"Soleo."

"I's Laoda. Let me bring you something to drink, you must be dehydrated. Can you get up and follow me inside?" She let him lean on her shoulder.

"Am I s-supposed to get into of the giant shrubbery?"

"Silly young man, Soleo. My property ain't no shrubbery. Sure the ol' Taliore needs a trim, but it's the cosiest lil' hotel you will find in town. You's going to love it here."

Soleo shrugged and followed Laoda inside.


	6. Standing In Line

As the shuttle landed on a high platform surrounded by dust corn fields, a pair of dark blue eyes peeked out from the last row of seats.

 

"So, we have arrived to Sacorria! Wake up, guys!"

 

"Yeah, now you'll be in your natural habitat, Dale. With Sacorrian grey bears. Maybe you'll find yourself a mate, too. Are you herding?"

 

Dale Pavan, the grey bear of a man, just grinned at Wompy's strange reply. He had spent most of the trip from Corellia to Sacorria with the members of Deeply Religious, since his own band mates were fast asleep. He had been concerned about Sassvar and Antonio for a while, but this time, even Wompy seemed to be absent-minded and almost unfriendly. His duty, or so he thought, was to keep everybody's spirits up.

 

And he was failing miserably.

 

A Drall intelligence officer was waiting for the seven passengers in front of the shuttle. She wore nothing but a red cap and a harness for a commlink and a blaster. Antonio Nokaarbe raised an eyebrow and started flexing his muscles, barely covered in a white piece of what seemed to be an oversized camisole. The other three members of Steamy Wasaka Stew walked past him.

 

"Names. Species. Hometowns. Homeworlds."

 

The shortish Wompy rolled his eyes and blurted out. "Con Brochet. Human from Tralus. And you didn't say welcome. Kriff that!" The Drall ignored his comment and looked up to the tallest individual in the group. He spoke before she repeated the question.

 

"Dandelion Roba Pavan. Human from Tyrena, Corellia." The Drall intelligence officer laughed and bit her tongue. "But you can call me Dale. The two guys who are still half-asleep are Sassvar Graba, Zabrak from Coronet City and Antonio Nokaarbe, Human from…"

 

"Not Human! That would be an error in the identification of the individual that is me. I'm part-Kiffar!" Antonio grinned. "Have you ever heard of psychometry…beautiful lady?"

 

"No and I don't care. Anything that does not contribute to progress and unity is a waste of time. Please, be quiet." She reached for the blaster in her harness, then stopped and just ran her hand through the fur on her hip instead. "Also, put a proper shirt on, now. It's not allowed to walk topless in public here. This is your second warning. Third warning means I'm pulling out my stun gun."

 

The intelligence officer walked to the other band.

 

"Dale, you ruined my chances with that one." Antonio looked at his drummer with an angry expression in his almost black eyes. "You completely ruined the probability of my engaging in procreation with this attractive individual! And I have an affinity to lady officers! And stun guns!"

 

Members of Deeply Religious were properly dressed and though chatty, pretty calm. The Drall woman was pleased.

 

"Names. Species. Hometowns. Homeworlds."

 

"Charon San Valorum, Human. Anra Renek, Duros. Koobalt Nubes, Ortolan. We are all from Ronto, Nubia. You are very welcoming, you know?"

 

"And so I am. Thank you." She offered Charon her hand. "I'm Brigada. I'll bring your host for the day over."

 

Antonio pouted like an angry toddler. "She didn't tell me her name! And she seems to like Valorum, out of all people! H-he wrote that atrocity of a song, which was clearly an attack on my persona and…"

 

"You promised that you're going to be friendly to him!" Dale reminded his friend. "It's not our fault we were booked to play with them on the planet with the most notorious prison in the sector. Remember that?"

 

The intelligence officer came back with a slender, black-haired Human male who was smiling.

 

"Welcome to the most progressive planet in the Sector, dear comrades! Comradette Brigada just told me you arrived and, of course, I cannot contain my excitement! I am your host for the day, Joak Bluest…"

 

It was too late. All seven guests were doing the "baby burp" goal celebration choreography already.

 

"Hey! I have done more than that with my life, of course!" Code:Blue protested.

 

"We know, you know?" Charon patted him on the shoulder. "We just couldn't resist. By the way, why are we taking the stairs?"

 

"Turbolifts are for climbing up only. Of course, we all need a bit of exercise, in order to live long and prosper."

 

Charon looked at Anra, who just shrugged, his permanent frown not making it clear if he was amused or bemused by their first taste of Sacorria. All seven beings rushed down the stairs, stocky Koobs panting behind the other six, struggling to follow their hyperactive host.

 

Once on Sacorria's well-known fertile soil, they were approached by a group of Selonian troopers. The musicians looked at Code:Blue, who seemed to be clueless so as to what was going on.

 

"Of…course…"  He could not continue, as if somebody was jamming his grey matter. He kept on looking at the troopers, then at his guests.

 

Finally, one of the Selonians stepped ahead.

 

"We are acting on the order of Their Leaderships themselves. One of these groups of wailers needs to leave Sacorria, immediately; otherwise they will indoctrinate our innocent and well-behaved youth!"

 

Antonio Nokaarbe grinned.

 

"We knew it. Thanks for getting us rid of this major offender and his gang and…"

 

"Steamy Wasaka Stew are not welcome on this planet!" the leading trooper interrupted him. "Comrade Nokaarbe, you are to stay, but these three men will have to leave. We were told that only the singer of the offending band should stay on Sacorria."

 

Sassvar's eyes shifted from one side to the other, as if he had made a vow not to say a single word that day. Dal seemed genuinely surprised, while Wompy was unable to contain himself.

 

"You kriffin' den rats! Why are we not allowed to play here when we were invited to play?"

 

"Den rats? I am afraid I'll have to…" The trooper fired from her blaster. "…stun you. Calling me a den rat is offensive, den rats are our backwards ancestors on that clearly inferior world known as Selonia. Now, back to the shuttle with the three of you! Big guy, you seem smart. Carry this parasite and repeat what I have just said to the one with little horns. Nokaarbe, take your luggage and roadie droids and accompany the members of Deeply Religious and comrade Cod…Glisse."

 

Members of Deeply Religious grinned, as Antonio trailed behind them and Code:Blue on the way to the repulsortrain station, accompanied only by buzzing roadie droids.

 

"Mrgwfr frgrh asrrh."

 

"Is that old Kiffar, comrade Nokaarbe?" Koobs pretended to flex his floppy ears as if they were muscles. "You sure are in the need for some psychometry yourself."

 

Anra's cold tone was barely audible. "No use. He probably doesn't know what it means."

 

"It's fine, neither do we." Charon stopped playing with the ring on his hand for a moment. "But he will find out…at some point, you know?"

 

They got on the speeder. Saccorata was visible in the distance, but they did not seem to be heading there.

 

"Where are we going? I need to get my hair done before the show!"

 

"Relax, Nokaarbe…" Charon put his hand on Antonio's knee, regardless of how repugnant his unwanted travel mate was. In reality, he was scared himself. Something could have been wrong.

 

"You'll see." Code:Blue grinned from the seat next to his musteline protocol droid who was entering directions into the navigation computer. "Of course!"

 

…

 

Tendra and Doria had been waiting in line for about five hours. It was getting warmer and warmer. On top of it, there was nobody else in sight, just a single red and a single orange shirt in the middle of a large, green field that dust corn may have been growing on come the day before.

 

"I cannot believe I am going to see Antonio up close! Doria, can you believe it?"

 

"No, I cannot believe that you are going to see Antonio up close. What is the deal with SWS, anyway? Why do you like them?"

 

Tendra opened her second pack of chocolate and grain candies for the day and sighed.

 

"Steamy Wasaka Stew have got to be the best group in the Galaxy! They're fusing jizz with pronk on regular basis, their songs are so, so liberating…just read this." She waved her datapad before her friend's face. "Just read this. Please, please, please read!"

 

Doria glanced at the lyrics of a song, apparently called Master Lover and shook her head.

 

"If I understood this well, that Antonio of yours first wants to be stunned by a female trooper or an actual Imperial Stormtrooper and then sleep with her while the prisoner ship is in hyperspace. Nothing weird about that, all right." She rolled her eyes.

 

"In a truly free world, such things would be acceptable! It's a fantasy and…and…being swept off your feet by such a handsome man is what every girl would desire. Don't you?"

 

"Right…what I always wanted. An Antonio for me, an Antonio for you, an Antonio for everybody. Shame they outlawed this after the Clone Wars. Any other songs you would recommend? Something else?"

 

"Watch the holovid for Underlevels. It's about serious problems poor Antonio was facing while he lived on Coruscant! He had personal demons, poor dear!"

 

"Gredda, whatever is the reason you're putting me through this torture, stop!" Doria thought to herself and tilted her head to see the video from the right angle. It was the usual thing – Antonio posing, Antonio's hair in the wind, Antonio's chest up close, one Antonio fading behind another Antonio.

 

"Oh, so he does not use epilaser on his nipples and chin? Antonio, how dare you?" Doria tried to crack a joke. "Anyway, does this band have any other members?"

 

Tendra pointed at the datapad. "This is Wompy, the bassoon player!"

 

"It's a trash compactor."

 

"And this would be Dale, the beast on drums! Our mothers would probably say he's the real man."

 

"It's a tree, Tendra…wait, who is this? The one whom I can actually see for more than half of a second?" Doria pulled Tendra's hand at the sight of a thin young man with thick brown hair. "Pause!"

 

Tendra shook her head. "That's Anjie Men-man-manicure…no, Mencuri, sorry. Sorry. Anyway, Ant…"

 

"Why are you sorry? We all get names wrong."

 

"I'm sorry because I think he's dead and you asked about him. Nobody knows. He hasn't been seen for five years now. The last thing I know, he was possessed and they got rid of him. I don't think he was a good fit, anyway. So, Ant…"

 

"How do you mean 'possessed', Tendra?"

 

"You know, like, crazy. Tonight, I think Ant...Doria, what's wrong?"

 

"I need some water. And I changed my mind; give me a large piece of that chocolate."

 

Tendra shrugged. Doria grabbed her comm and typed out a message to Gredda, containing the thing she thought about earlier and a plea for a short-sleeved orange shirt instead of her long-sleeved one. Minutes later, the comm beeped.

 

"Gredda? Are you going to bring me the shirt?"  
  
"I don't have much time, Doria…but I had to tell you this. I got a very strange HoloChat message. I was asked if I would lend my knowledge to an important project with super-high priority."

 

Doria moved away from Tendra. It took her good thirty seconds to respond.   
  
"That has got to be a prank, Gredda! Either that, or they are trying to scam you and make you pay a fat pile of credits to invest in something…those Neimodian scammers!"  
  
"Not this one. Whatever it is, they clearly know my name and background and they know what we're making at the factory. And they cannot make it without me!"

 

"Irrigation machinery and droids are pretty much common knowledge."

 

"Hmmm…right." The tone of Gredda's voice was strange for a moment. "Anyway, they want me in Dorthus Tal, tonight. I am leaving to an undefined location near Corellia from Their Leaderships' private spaceport. Maybe something is wrong with the Centerpoint Station and it actually has a purpose. This is so exciting, Doria!"

"Their Leaderships have a…what? And how am I going to survive mom now, before reuniting with great aunt Larax on Vagran? You have kept me sane for the past two years, since dad and granny died..."

 

"Oh, you will survive. And you are sane. Don't worry. Duchess Branna said that you can always drop by whenever Maris is being…Maris. On top of it, I will e-mail you from Corellia tonight. Make sure you join everybody at the Grain Night banquet after the festival."

"Will do, but…"

 

The call was over.

 

"What is going on, Doria? Who is it?" Tendra barely managed to mutter a couple of words through a mouthful of whatever the next thing she had in her bag was. "Sorry, I am so, so nervous!"

 

Doria didn't listen. She had forgotten to ask about the shirt again.

 


	7. A Proposal for Blobbo

**_Anaslinea-Hoc, Vagran, the same day_ **

Blobbo the Hutt was reclining on his repulsorlift floating platform and eating plain apex tree nuts. A true Vagranite despite having been born on Nal Hutta, he was aware of the dangers of junk food and, luckily, his immense wealth and enormous appetite allowed him to be incredibly well-fed and, in his opinion, incredibly healthy at the same time. The reason he chose to carve his palace inside of a mountain was pretty much of similar nature – he thought that the stone would protect him from the dangers of cosmic radiation. This was the reason he never travelled to any other planet as well.

He called the mouse droid over to clean up the slime and activate the ceiling sonic shower. Despite the loud noise of flowing water from the Solvo sea, enhanced by minerals, he was pretty sure his probe droids registered somebody approach the cave-castle. What kind of a visitor would bother him close to the early bedtime he needed for his beauty sleep?

“That has got to be either Darse Loor or Aerenna Gelmeen.” He said, with a strange accent that could only belong to a Hutt who spoke Basic by choice. “Fly to the door, Taggo and Maggo! Mousee, perfume me. Now!” 

Blobbo’s twin Toydarian majordomos collided in the air on their way to the gate.

“Watch out where you’re going, Trunk-Brain!” Taggo yelled at his brother.

“No, you watch where you’re going!” Maggo shook his fist. “I am going to make sure your trunk full of booger actually gets into your brain, through your eye sockets…wermo!”

The person at the door was a woman, but she looked nothing like Aerenna Gelmeen to Taggo and Maggo. She had no hair to speak of, was very pale and the jetpack on her back looked like something stolen from a Mandalorian armour. She did not seem one bit interested in the twins' blasters aimed towards her.

"Who are you?" They asked in almost perfect unison.

"The pleasure is all mine…boyos. I’m Dryxa, from the Bounty Hunters’ guild. A Dathomirian, if that matters to your employer. I am coming here on behalf of a group of us who have a little proposal for you. And the two of you would be…?"

“Taggo and Maggo, His Greatness' most faithful servants. What kind of a proposal is this?”

“Oh…he will get more than he bargained for.” The woman winked and reached out to one of their trunks. “But I am not willing to disclose the details to anybody below him…if you know what I mean. Cute trunk, by the way.” 

One of the Toydarian twins - the one whose nose she did not compliment - shrugged, titled his head and went to introduce the visitor to the Hutt crime lord. The other, seemingly kinder and slightly smitten, decided to warn her about his Master's practices.

"What you have to know, Dryxa, is that Blobbo is no stranger to extreme measures when he does not get what he bargained for. Last year, he started dismembering a rokna blue addict who owed him thousands of credits. And the other, wimpier one cried like a tooka and ended up giving us pretty much everything he owned to pay his debt, effectively becoming a slave here."

“What happened to these rokna addicts, Taggo?” Dryxa raised her eyebrow.

“I’m Maggo! The first bled to death before the Master’s eyes in order to show others what will happen if they don’t follow the orders. The other was taken away to Naboo by Darse Loor. The Master traded him for a rancor cub that he wanted to raise. I assume he is nothing but ashes on the bottom of the Solleu River, as he was too far gone to be bribed with spice to go on some undercover missions. You don’t want to end up like him, don’t you?”

Dryxa swallowed a lump. That was an unpleasant story. Poor rancor! 

But this had to go on. There was no way back. She followed Maggo into the main chamber of Blobbo’s cave. A couple of large amphorae stolen from various archaeological sites around Anaslinea-Hoc were displayed in a corner. Everything else was almost sterile, like a sight from a med lab. A large viewscreen was located on the straightest wall. That was the kind of place she had never seen before. Most Hutts' lairs were dirty and full of dust.

On top of that, a Hutt that smelled of flowers and ordering a mouse droid to clean the path before his visitor, Blobbo sure was an interesting sight.

“His greatness, Blobbo Fasolia Toupé.” Taggo pointed to his Master who, to Dryxa's surprise, moved his tail in a curtsey-like position and opened his mouth wide upon the first sight of her.

"Dryxa Farr. Why is his greatness looking at me like that?" She turned to the Toydarians.

"You…you have no hair. That's clean! Very, very clean." Blobbo's tail swirled. "I always need to disinfect the place after Aerenna Gelmeen comes around. I once found a red hair in my food!" 

"His greatness hates dirt." Maggo flew towards Dryxa and whispered. "And yes, he speaks Basic. His own language reminds him of goo." He looked at Taggo, who nodded.

"So, what do I owe this pleasure to?" 

"As I have said to your loyal servants, I need certain information. Rumours travel fast and I am pretty sure that you know what I need and why I need it. And…I will bring you something you can then exchange for whatever kind of a servant or Imperial protection you desire."

"That's…cryptic. I am going to slime and…I don't like to slime!" Blobbo looked down. "Can you be a bit more straight to the point?"

"I could. Then again, I am not afraid of what you may do otherwise. I know your rancor died because you fed it a vegetarian diet. And I know most of your dangerous henchmen are out and about around the sector, chasing spice addicts and pimps."

Blobbo slapped himself on the head with his own tongue and then, realising what he had done, activated the sonic shower again. Dryxa rolled her eyes.

"So, what do you want?"

"Something that I know your faux-Imperial associates Aerenna Gelmeen and Darse Loor could give you…a location of what is rumoured to be built somewhere in the Outer Rim…right now."

"And why would you need that?" Blobbo straightened his tail again and reached out to grab some more snacks. "You are a mere bounty hunter, Dryxa!"

She leaned on him. He moved back and then set the platform to raise one metre higher. She casually activated her jetpack and flew up to him again, the confused Toydarians following her. Blobbo was getting nervous.

"D-don't infect me with otherworldly germs. Just tell me why you need that location!" 

“You know, and I know that there will be blood spilled, just like the last time around." Dryxa made a summersault in the air. "And once that happens, we can both triumph. Sure you would want a lot of high profile hostages and you will need some skilled spacers to get a hold of them? Bounty hunters are known to be great spacers, right?” 

She leaned on the Hutt again. After he failed to respond, she continued. 

"I will bring you one of the COMPNOR's most wanted reactionaries and then you can swap him for whomever you want, whatever you want. He is true scum. Your kind of bounty."

Blobbo drooled and Taggo immediately flew towards him to clean his slime. Now, that would have made some good negotiation material.

"Is he a spice addict? Can he be bullied into gathering others' debt?"

"I don't think so. He is more of a party man, but that's not what matters. All of his band's works have been banned and COMPNOR has recently disposed of the person who discovered him. It was quite a scandal, even if you would ask somebody from Juicy Blabber, or whoever else is equally brain-dead."

"So, who is that? Could it be…"

"…Charon Valorum of Deeply Religious. I will bring him to you; you will give me the location."

Blobbo drooled again. This was like the New Year's fete coming early! 

"I accept. Darse and Aerenna will be back from Thaeme in the morning. I will get you what you need, provided that you bring me Valorum in no more than two days. Otherwise…I assume Maggo told you how I deal with those who don't respect their part of the deal?"

"He sure did. And trust me…you won't need to dismember this girl. Plus, you like me. You want me to dance for you or whatever else turns a Hutt on. And I would need my limbs for that."

Blobbo nodded. He could not deny what Dryxa just said. As he watched the Dathomirian walk away, he accidentally knocked the snack bowl with his tail. Taggo and Maggo ran to eat the nuts from the shining floor before Mousee would arrive to dispose of them.

Dryxa activated her backpack the moment she was out of the cave-castle. Five minutes later, she landed on the roof of one of the last buildings in the town, right behind the sign that read "TALIORE – ROOMS AND BREAKFAST – AFFORDABLE – OPEN 23 HOURS". The roof and the sign were the only things that actually looked like a building; below them was a dense, dense hedge-like structure. 

She knocked on the transparisteel roof door. It seems that nobody was up, which was slightly unusual for Taliore. Luckily, she did need some time. The waist bags below the jetpack were immediately dropped to the floor, so was the long scarf around her neck. She then proceeded to remove the pale make-up with markings from her face, to reveal a more or less standard Human tint. 

Just then, her radionics device beeped.

"Sweetcorn, is that you?" the scrambled voice on the other side spoke through an immense amount of static. "Answer me!"

"Yes!" She jumped up in the air, almost stepping on her scarf. "Lucky you're close, so we can communicate without any significant delay. Though really, you could have opted for hyperyak chat instead. I've been using that for a couple of years and with a good filter, nobody can trace you. Nobody."

"I thought you called to say you were missing me." The voice sounded concerned. "This has got to be the strangest place ever; to the point where I cannot even believe it's real. But at the same time, it's nice. Not what I expected, clearly."

"Of course I am missing you, love. I have not seen you since…that unfortunate event. But remember, this will be over, soon. And we will be together."

"Love you too, Sweetcorn!" The static was annoying at this point and the voice was getting more and more breathy. "Now, tell me, did you manage to get the deal with Blobbo?"

She put the radionics gadget on the letter Trill to remove the bare scalp mask and spill on her hands and run them through a tiny bun on top of her head. Seconds later, she had luxurious, long hair. 

"That I did. And we're going to get what we need to know."

"What if those hairy wermos may get it before us…"

"Even if they do, knowing the situation, not everybody will make it to the one who needs to know. By the way, where are you? What is that noise in the background?"

"Don't ask. Just wish me luck for tonight."

"It's already night on Vagran."

"Heeey!"

"Don't worry, I am just teasing you. Good luck, love!"

There was nothing but the static on the other side. Her partner had already gone. Just then, somebody opened the transparisteel door.

"It's you!" the woman in a flower skirt clapped her hands and let the young girl in.

"Laoda Kaeni! It's been a while!" 

They hugged and continued towards the narrow, spiral stairs. 

"I have somebody for you, by the way." Laoda said, as she was turning on the light in the dining room on the ground floor. "He arrived just the other day."

"Oh?"


	8. Progress vs. Unity

**_Curheg, Sacorria_ **

 

By the time the four visitors arrived to the city of Curheg, Antonio Nokaarbe was sleeping on the back seat of the shuttle. When they had stopped for a caf break earlier, he tried to make advances at GR-3, Code:Blue's musteline droid, but she did not seem particularly delighted. Sleeping seemed to be his method of coping with the second rejection of the day.

 

Unlike him, the members of Deeply Religious were eagerly listening to their cheerful, grinning host, never asking any questions about why they were suddenly being taken around Sacorria.

 

That proved to be a good decision.

 

Finally, the speeder dove into the thick-as-durasteel clouds of suspiciously coloured smog and landed on the roof of a large building covered in pink flowers. Code:Blue, who had spent some time grinning at places they were passing by, spoke again; as if he had snapped out of daydreaming once the picturesque landscapes changed to factories and almost exclusively eleven-storey buildings.

 

"Comrades, wake up! We have arrived to the glorious city of Curheg, the pride of Sacorria!”

 

“I bet you’d say that about any other city.” Charon thought, scratched his nose and stretched in his seat. "So, where are we going?" He asked the host.

 

"The ProSper factory, where magic is made. Magic called Saygo!" Code:Blue jumped up and down and then looked to the back of the shuttle. "Comrade Nokaarbe, do you need a bib?"

Antonio woke up in a pool of his own drool on the cushion. Nevertheless, he seemed confused that the others were laughing at him.

 

"You OK?" Anra approached the flamboyant singer with caution. "Did something happen?"

 

"Something sure happened, my dear Duros. I had the most beautiful of dreams, ever. The most special, loving dream…involving a glorious individual of the female kind and I was…"

 

"…her infant child who could not burp?" Charon interrupted Antonio. "Yup, we get it, pal. That’s one wicked, wicked fantasy you have there."

 

Nokaarbe was angry, but he remembered Dale’s words and tried to remain calm. After all, Sacorrian trademark superfood – paranoia – was catching on him pretty fast – what if he was to become a slave at the ProWhatever factory?

 

GR-3 brought a super-absorbing sponge from the speeder’s cargo compartment. Antonio raised an eyebrow and was about to say something, but she unenthusiastically stuck the sponge down his throat, turned around and followed her master, not paying any more attention to the offworlder. After all, she was programmed to despise them.

 

Charon was the first to get out of the shuttle. To him, Curheg didn't look glorious. On the contrary. The sun was barely visible through the smog and everybody walked around in shirts with a ProSper logo on them. He was sure that those shirts were supposed to be yellow, but the lack of colour was making them look greyish, almost dirty.

 

"It feels like home here." He said, sotto voce.

 

"Of course, comrade Valorum!" Code:Blue was right behind him again. "Curheg is home! Home of glory, home of progress and home of some of the most beautiful flower hybrids on Sacorria!"

 

“You misunderstood me, mast…comrade Glisse. I was born in Ronto, this…this small town on Nubia that you never heard of. And one of the reasons Nuba City is so beautiful is…the obvious fact that all the ugly factories, refineries and the shipyards are located in Ronto and the surrounding grasslands.”

 

Code:Blue cocked his head. Then he shrugged and started nodding repeatedly, pointing at the flowers.

 

“I understand that. ProSper offices are in Sublata, of course! We will go there next, you will observe a true jewel of a city! But we don’t have much time and you need to see the factory. Comrades Renek, Nubes and – of course - Nokaarbe, come along!”

 

"How can flowers even grow in this thick smog?" Anra looked at the closest iris. “I have never been to my home planet, but from what I understand, no plants grow on it and it’s polluted…this place seems to be similar.”

 

He kneeled and picked a flower. The scent was surprisingly sharp, in a good way, almost intoxicating. The Duros remembered something and, while Code:Blue was describing the beauty of Curheg to Antonio and Koobs, he came up to Charon.

 

“Do not smell any flowers, whatever you do!” He whispered. “I have seen Sacorrian irises before, there is something strange about these particular ones. I think they’re a very, very specific kind of a hallucinogenic.”

 

“W-what? Wasn’t that a conspiracy theory from Galaxy Watch?”

 

“It was. But sometimes those turn out to be true. We need to be careful.”

 

“Do we tell Nokaarbe about this?” Charon put an arm on his tall friend’s shoulder. “Do you think it’s our duty to warn him, like…true comrades?”

 

Seconds later, they both cackled.

 

…

 

The tour of ProSper factory was marked by a lot of “of course”, a lot of manufactured enthusiasm on the workers’ behalf and a lot of eye-rolling on the behalf of the two Humans, while the Ortolan and Duros mostly kept to themselves.

 

At the end of the visit, a group of women in traditional Sacorrian garbs approached Code:Blue and the four musicians in the main production hall. The shortest one among them, a Human with sandy-blonde hair, stepped out and presented the group with a carved wood tray.

 

“Progress and unity, comrades Valorum, Renek, Nubes and Nokaarbe!” The women behind her curtsied, as she continued. “Comrade Glisse may have told you that our glorious city of Curheg was the first settlement on the planet, more than twenty-seven millennia ago. And we have kept our humble customs to this very day. Therefore, I am presenting you with the traditional dust corn bread and salt from the mines of Solana.”

 

Members of Deeply Religious stepped forward and took a slice of bread each.

 

“But…but…the carbs!” Antonio protested. “I do not eat…”

 

“What did you say, comrade Nokaarbe?” Code:Blue almost dropped the flat datapad he had been carrying around all day. Koobs stepped on Antonio’s foot. The singer almost screamed, but – to everybody’s luck – he got the clue.

 

“Sorry, I do not eat without carbs on the table. I’m so happy now. I get excited over carbs and I cannot imagine a life without a good slice of bread like this. Thank you.”

 

The woman smiled and stepped back, leaving the food near a production line. She did not enjoy Antonio’s presence. As the Ortolan reached back to the tray for more sliced bread, Charon approached Code:Blue with a request.

 

“I really, really need to use the ‘fresher.”

 

“Marinesca, where is the refresher?”

 

The woman pointed to the door on the other end of the hall.  
  
“Aaah...of course!”

 

…

 

**_Sacorrata, Sacorria_ **

 

Six more hours have passed by. Tendra and Doria were now sitting in front of the doors with about forty other teenagers behind them. One group appeared to be fans of SWS and another group was clearly into Deeply Religious. The latter were less chatty – they kept to themselves. It was getting unbearably hot.

 

"Tendra!" somebody yelled from across the field, having spotted her red shirt. The girls turned around to see four of Tendra's friends who rode in the landcar with her the afternoon after graduation. "Oh…and Doria, Doria Vorr out of all people is with you. How did that happen?"

 

"Doria was so kind to give me a spare ticket, so I could see…"

 

"Yeah, we know. Your Aaaantonio!" one of the boys made an impression of a man flipping his long hair and flexing his muscles. "I am still reserved about this. You know, the critics say that Steamy Seconds is a flop."

 

"Why is it a flop?" Tendra was almost angry. "Some songs on it are great!"

 

"SexySpiceStarSinners was better." The other teenage boy, whom Doria recognised as the one who was rude to her about Jax Novo the other day, lifted two thumbs up. "Mencuri was on it. The great one himself."

 

"Dak, Dak, Dak!” Tendra raised her voice.”Why don’t you be progressive and let go of the past? Mencuri probably perished by now! But...Sassvar Graba is almost as hot as Antonio! And he is...alive, too."

 

"The Zabrak? He looks like a pimp. He looks like one of those men who like Twi'lek slave girls. And..."

 

"Like you don't, Dak?" Tendra pouted and got up, her arms on her waist. “Why do you blame him for what all men clearly do?”

 

The young man looked up. “What does he have that I don’t?” He took his yellow shirt off and threw it to Doria. “Here, hold this. I am going to spend the whole evening topless, to show you that anybody and everybody can be like Antonio or Sassvar.”

 

Tendra was about to say something, but he cut her short. She turned around and headed to the refreshment booth, where a waitress droid was waiting to serve her.

 

“And do not remind me that this is punishable by law!”  Dak yelled after her. “If they come after me at any point, I’ll know who betrayed me. Jhorn Risant’s perfect, squeaky-clean daughter!”

 

He sat down next to Doria, took out his datapad and, moments later, the familiar, mellow quetarra intro to Underlevels got her eyes glued to the screen, again. She leaned over his shoulder.

  
“Are you trying to sniff me, weirdo?” Dak leaned to the other side. “Or are you into the annoying Nokaarbe, as if that annoying Jax Novo was not enough?”

 

“N-no. I...like the music. I really do. Can I see any other holovid from SexySpice...?"

 

“You don’t even know the name of the album. Incredible.” He turned the tablet away from her.  
  
“Dak…and what if I say that I don’t care about Antonio and Sassvar?”

 

"Ugh. Okay.”  Dak found another holovideo. “This is _Take It With You_. It was recorded on Tatooine, wherever that may be. Looks like a desert planet. I…I love this band for doing things in places nobody has and nobody will ever hear of.”

 

…

 

**_Curheg, Sacorria_ **

 

Twenty or so minutes after he left the group, Charon came back. Code:Blue, who was now entertaining the guests by having them pretend they were droids working on the production line, ran to him immediately.  
  
“Is everything progressive, comrade Valorum?”

 

"Yes. You have really, really nice ‘freshers here. They almost smell like those pretty flowers!"

 

"Of course, comrade Valorum! Sacorrian Iris is Curheg’s number two brand and our refreshers indeed smell of it.”

 

“And that lovely scent completely masked the odour of the vile, huge, crispy poodoo I just took. That said, I’m sorry, I almost clogged the duct!”

 

“Poodoo, poodoo!” Koobs raised his trunk. “Great work, pal! But you’re yet to top me!”

 

Code:Blue nearly broke into another round of “of course”, but he changed his mind this time. There was something strange about Deeply Religious, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

 


	9. All Things Come in Twos

Laoda Kaeni led her curly-haired visitor to Taliore’s kitchen, located behind a large and empty dining room. The girl had a look around. The Durasteel elements were almost glistening. Everything seemed clean and the unmistakable stench of rotten food common to small hotels in backwater towns was suspiciously absent. Having seen that Taliore was nowhere as luxurious as most other seaside hotels, she was slightly confused.

“Aren’t you cooking for your visitors?” she asked Laoda.

“I, cooks? Ha. That take away too much time. If they wants to eat, there restaurant on the beach, about two, three hundred metres away. I cooks them Hoth chocolate or makes them a toasted sandwich with whatever I has on hand. Cooking would requires having more staff. I cannot possibly hires anybody else right now.”

“I really like a good slice of bread with pretty much anything, so I may have to ask you to make me one of those sandwiches when we’re done with this.”

“Okieday. Today I has nerf ham.”

Okieday? That expression did not sound very Vagranite. The girl had heard that word before, but she could not remember where, or how. Maybe it was in one of the many holodocumentaries she had seen before she chose her current path. She shrugged and followed Laoda through the doors of the largest food conservator, as if that was the most common thing known to man. She had seen so many secret passages before, to the point where she swore she knew how to find them in almost every single place.

“You young people, constantly messings with datapads.” Laoda objected, pointing to the device in the girl’s hand.

“You are right. I will put that down.”

The spiral staircase, very similar to the one leading to the first and second floor, led the two women underground.

“Knows how I saids I knows somebody you needed to talks to? Well, I lieds. There two of them!”

The girl was puzzled. She did hear the rumours of a Selonian slave having posed as a Stormtrooper and supposedly being eaten by the notorious burping Sarlacc, so it could not have been him. At this point, she was sure that Laoda was hiding a political prisoner from Force-knows-where in the Galaxy. Or two of them.

The catacombs led them to a small cave, likely above the sea, since the sound of waves hitting was pretty loud. The cave had been converted into a very simple apartment.

“Wakes up, friends.” Laoda clapped her hands. “You has a visitor.”

A Selonian male in yellow trousers got up and grabbed a blaster. The being who was sharing the underground space with him was still snoring, under a light blanket.

“I apologise. I always take my blaster out now that I have one again. My name is Soleo and that would be…”

Just as Soleo said that, his roommate jumped out of the bunk, screaming, with the blanket still covering his head. “My no wanten be executed! My innocent!” He looked at the mirror and screamed again. “Eeeek, mooie scary monster! Waiten…it’s mesa!”

Soleo shook his head and went to help his friend remove the blanket. The girl did not get over the shock of the Selonian slave being alive, and now, right before her, there stood an important figure of recent Galactic history – Jar Jar Binks.

“Calm down, Master Binks!” She went up to him and patted him on the shoulder. “I am not here to hurt you or betray you. I know you have been hiding for quite a while and…I wouldn’t want to be you right now.”

Jar Jar nodded and shook hands with the visitor. There were days he didn’t want to be himself either, particularly those before Soleo joined him in his little hideout. He had been on the run from a couple of months after the Battle of Yavin, ever since the day that woman killed Commodex Tahn.

“I am here to listen to your story. Soleo’s, too, but I hope he won’t mind that you’ll go first.”

“I won’t, of course. Not that there is much to my story, either way. A malcontent Selonian sick of being breeding stock for a Queen was lured into promise of a different life and ended up stunned on a slave transport ship. You’ve heard it all before, right?”

The girl nodded, but sat closer to Soleo and hugged him, regardless.

“No story of suffering and deception is less important than any other.”

“I will brings you those sandwiches…” Laoda headed towards the secret passage again. “It looks like it’s going to be a long night!” She stopped for a moment. “Yes, Jar Jar, I brings you things that nobody else would eat, not even for a 100 000-credit bet. No worries.”

Jar Jar, who was nervously walking around the hideout, finally sat down next to the girl and Soleo.

“Yousa no tellen me yousa name.” He scratched one of his eye stalks. “My refuse to talken, if yousa no tellen me yousa name.”

“Oh, silly me. I have many names. I play many games. I’m on the run, but what you need to know is that I work for the Alliance to Restore the Republic, that I’m from Aurea and that my name is Deeina Ferry. And I am here to get you out of this mess, but it will be risky.”

“Pleased to meeten yousa, Deeina.”

“So, what do you know? We are going to find the location of the second Death Star, so I assume there is something else. Otherwise, I just got myself into even more trouble for no reason.”

Jar Jar took a deep breath. “The woman was with two machineeks…and she talked to one of them, he was muy scary! Mesa still scared!”

“Sounds like that notorious assassin droid who looks like a protocol droid,” Deeina thought to herself. “And what did she say?”

“Deysa…could not believen that Anakin Skywalker had a son and that mistress Padmé was the mother. And then…my remembered that mistress Padmé’s pregnant stomach was too big for a single babby!”

“Oh…my.” Deeina sat down.

…

<pre>// Seamadeofglass: Blasetreegoatau chat session started at 2000 GST. FAILURE TO FETCH DATE :: WEAK SIGNAL. REPORT TO support@hyperyak.gal //

Seamadeofglass: prog!!!

Seamadeofglass: u ther?

BlasetreegoatAU: hai…bit bizi, but I can talk. W have u been?

Seamadeofglass: long story. moving to vagran f. university. very sun.

BlasetreegoatAU: get out of here! that good good news.

// BlasetreegoatAU sets off fete fireworks for Seamadeofglass. //

Seamadeofglass: yup, but gredda…she went away this morning. i wont even get to say gbye. aparentli she got an important job related to the centerpoint station or something. :/

// Seamadeofglass shakes the screen, like a Rebel //

BlasetreegoatAU: giv me sum time. slower.

Seamadeofglass: wut iz going on w/u?

BlasetreegoatAU: bizi…i m tell u one dai…or not.

Seamadeofglass: wai? u, outta all beings kriffin mi mind!!!!!!!

BlasetreegoatAU: g2 go…sori.

// BlasetreegoatAU has left the conversation. //

Seamadeofglass: prog?

Seamadeofglass: prog?

// Seamadeofglass shakes the screen, like a Rebel //

Seamadeofglass: kriff u!!!</pre>

Doria was close to throwing her datapad in the grass. Her mysterious HyperYak friend never acted like this before. And in a situation like this, she really wanted somebody to talk to, since Gredda was no longer responding to her calls. She had been the first person to get onto the field, the first person to grab the metal barrier and save a place for Tendra and the four boys at the very centre of the stage, yet nobody thanked her for it. For the past two hours, she and Tendra had been standing there, leaning on the barrier, with Dak to Doria’s right. He had originally been standing next to Tendra, but for reasons he could not determine, the girls had switched places. He was trying to catch Tendra’s eye, but at this point she was outright ignoring him.

“I am going to bring us some food.” Tendra nudged Doria. “I hope you’re hungry, because I am.”

“I am, but I have to wait until the dinner at Duchess Branna’s place…if there’s anything left by the time this is over. Mom didn’t give me any credits today.”

Tendra frowned at even the thought of Maris. “Silly woman, your mother. Did she expect you to go without food and water all day? Anyway, even if you had credits, this would be on me.”

“Hey Tendra, bring me a Hoth chocolate.” Dak turned to the girls, flexing his muscles, imitating Antonio Nokaarbe. “I read in Galaxy Watch that it’s a...love potion.”

“Then go and get your own.” Tendra held her head up high and headed to the nearest food booth. Doria sat down, making sure to save her friend’s place. The four boys sat down, too. She notice Dak winking to the rest.

“Great. She’s ignoring me again.” He said to one of his friends. “Jan, are you even listening to me?”

Jan patted Dak on the shoulder. “That’s the way it is. The wicked witches are always available.” He looked Doria’s way for a moment, or so she thought. “And the true catch never wants to look your way. How dare she torture you after you…after you put so much effort into impressing her?”

“I…I signed up to the special defence forces to get my body to look like this. I wanted to take her to the Young Progressive Alliance party after this.” Dak threw the yellow T-shirt he was carrying to the ground and trampled it. “And she said no. She always says no. Kriffin’ no, no matter what I do!”

“Women suck, my comrade…they suck a lot.” Jan concluded. “Also, you seem to hate clothing. Keep on trying, maybe one day she will realise you’re actually…reachable, while Nokaarbe is not.”

Doria was doing her best to make it like they were not insulting her sort-of-friend in her presence, but it was getting more and more uncomfortable. She then decided to cut them short, somehow.

“Dak, I was wondering something. Could you give me that yellow T-shirt if you don’t want to wear it? It’s warmer than it was and…”

He stopped her before she could finish the sentence and threw the shirt in her face.  
“Alright, alright, blabbermouth. Just make sure you change somewhere where I don’t have to look at your horrible stormie helmets.”

Doria shrugged and covered up with Tendra’s “ANTONIO, I LOVE YOU” banner to change underneath it. This was not the first time somebody spoke to her this way. And what were “stormie helmets”, anyway?


	10. Indocrination of Youth

Thirty minutes before the beginning of the Grain Night Fest, Code:Blue was as stressed as ever. He was running around among confused performers, with a small datapad in each hand and a comm between his teeth. To an average onlooker, it was probably frightening. To those who knew him, it was _perfectly normal_.

 

“Everything must be organised properly, of course. We want this to go well, of course.” He dropped the comm once he spoke and shook his head, then repeated his mantra. “Of course, of course…of course!”

 

A tall blonde woman with puffy hair, wearing a short sequin dress, was trying to converse with the person dubbed her special guest. She could not quite understand what was wrong with him – sure she was taller than him, plus she was wearing high heels, _but he could have at least made an effort to actually look her in the face_.

 

“So, let’s try this again.” She nervously tapped her stiletto on the floor. “Your band is not here, so this brilliant limmie player” – she pointed to Code:Blue who had managed to get himself trapped in a bunch of cables and was now being freed by nearby droids – “came up with the idea of your playing with me.”

 

“Yes, and I’m honoured to be singing with such a beautiful woman!” Antonio raised his eyebrow. “We can collaborate further after our performance, which will undoubt…”

 

Droids behind them were cutting cables – Code:Blue was mumbling something about “having to install new ones, of course”.

 

“No, we cannot.” Pretty Dadanna looked almost threatening. “Here on Sacorria, it’s against the law to canoodle with an offworlder.”

 

Antonio raised his right hand in protest. “Since when does a sector-wide star who performed for numerous Imperial troopers care about such a minor law?”

 

“Since about thirty seconds ago…Nokaarbe.” She leaned over and looked into his eyes. That was the moment he realised that she was definitely taller than him, heels or not. That was his second rejection of the day. Was he getting older or something? Thirty-eight was not old, by any means! He did not want any more of this. He wanted to be off this planet by morning and, by now, he was sure of it.

 

Meanwhile, Code:Blue had freed himself from his bonds and was running around once again, making sure everything was going smoothly. GR-3 trailed behind him, making sure that her master did not run into a stray power source or something equally bad.

The members of Deeply Religious were looking at the crowd from the edge of the stage. Koobs was pointing at people in the audience, much las he always did before shows, trying to find volunteers to join the band onstage during their song _Cloudcity_.

 

“I like the blonde girl in the front row!” His trunk pointed at the taller of the two young women with a large banner. “Niiice stormie helmets. Really, really nice. I would totally put my trunk dow…”

 

“You’re an Ortolan, kriffslider.” Anra’s expressionless face blocked his way, as he yelled at his wayward bandmate. “Draw a line somewhere! Plus, doesn’t the ANTONIO, I LOVE YOU! banner put you off? It sure would put me off, if I was a…err…omnisexual like you.”

 

“Char is still going to pull her up on stage, right?” Koobs turned to the frontman. “Char?”

No response. The Ortolan resorted to wrapping his trunk around the frontman’s neck. Charon just rolled his eyes. He was used to Koobs’ antics, as much as Koobs was used to his.

 

“Sorry, guys…I’m still shocked by what we saw in that Curheg city. That is not a way to live one’s life, drugged by those flowers and not realising that the rest of the planet is a nice place, with no toxic fumes, darkness at noon…”

 

Anra’s single expression did not change, but he seemed excited, as much as a Duros could be. “ _Darkness at Noon_? Char, that’s a book title. I was given that in my political science class in the first year, as an example of…”

 

“Kriff that, I don’t read no books.” Charon cut him short. “Anyway, I have a plan and I’m sticking to my plan. Oh, there he goes again…the happy government apparatchik!”

 

They stopped their conversation as Code:Blue headed towards them, Antonio and Dadanna following him. After about a minute of awkward silence, the woman and the official both nudged the muscular singer.

 

“Valorum, I am going to need your help.” Nokaarbe was grinning at his rival in an almost unnatural fashion for a Human. “No one but you can save me from this poodoo tonight,” he then added, sotto voce.

 

“You? From me?”

 

“Please! I need you to play quetarra on Underlevels, which I am going to sing with this delightful woman who rejected my supreme advances…”

 

“That part is not relevant to what you’re asking Master Valorum.” Code:Blue looked at Dadanna, who just nodded and rolled her eyes. “Of course.”

 

Charon was trying his best not to laugh, and pretended he was not amused. In reality, he had been looking for this opportunity all day. The Curheg-picked Sacorrian Iris in a conservator bag was simply calling to him to do something with it.

 

“Now, how does one play Underlevels? It’s a Mencuri composition, isn’t it?” he pouted, in a manner that seemed to be his best impersonation of the former SWS member. “Didn’t you once say that I cannot play quetarra to save my life?”

 

“I didn’t mean it! It’s natural wailer-rivalry. Just help me out, please!”

 

“I will.” Charon was now grinning in the same way as Nokaarbe himself. Anra and Koobs repeated the same sentence.

 

“Yes, like, you’re just going to stand there and make angry Duros faces.” Antonio pointed to Anra. “I mean…I’m so lost and yes, Underlevels requires a decent bassoon player and you’re one.”

 

“And I’m a good drummer.” Koobs’ trunk was slowly wrapping around Antonio’s neck, making him uncomfortable.

 

“Yes, you’re a good drummer! Your drumming excellence is separating sodium from chlorine! Your drumsticks are kriffing the virgins in the nebula skies!”

 

Code:Blue had no idea what was going on. And Pretty Dadanna was not willing to explain it to him. The hypocrisy of show business would have been too much for him to handle, or so she thought. She shook her head and went backstage to tell her own backing musicians, all of them Selonians in Sacorrian Army uniforms, that they would have a paid night off.

 

…

 

As the night fell slowly over the vine-covered blocks of the Northern District’s skyscrapers in the distance, the crowd was getting more and more impatient. They had been waiting outside for nearly twelve hours on an exhaustingly warm day and the word got around that one of the wailer groups was not present for “whatever reason”.

 

It was twenty one hundred when a man who seemed to be sporting a perpetual grin finally addressed the crowd.

 

“Welcome to….” He stopped to observe a crowd of about hundred thousand people performing his famed “baby burp” choreography. “Yes, that’s me, of course…”

 

Once the crowd stopped, he breathed a huge sigh of relief and continued.

 

“Welcome to the Grain Night Fest, brought to you by CESA. That would be Censorship, Education and Scholarship Agency…of this very planet, of course! You’re going to have a lot of fun…of course, progressive fun!” He stopped for a moment. “Young man in the front row, put a shirt on, of course!”

 

Dak did not realise that Code:Blue was talking to him, until a security guard came his way, pointing to the orange long-sleeve shirt tied around the barrier.

 

“Put this on!”

 

“It’s not mine!” Dak protested. “It’s not even a men’s uniform!”

 

“I said, put this on!” The tall Selonian male did not want to listen to the next excuse of the day.

 

Dak mumbled a couple of “kriffs” between his teeth, while Tendra and Doria were trying hard not to giggle. Once he managed to put the orange shirt on, he looked awkward – there was too much space in the chest, not enough space in the shoulders and waist.

 

“It’s all your fault, Doria Vorr! You’re a burden.” He stopped for a second to see if the girl was listening to him and then continued. “Wherever you are, whatever you do, you are a burden!”  

 

“She’s not.” Tendra rolled her eyes and hugged her friend. “The only burden here is you. Can’t you learn how to handle rejection?”

 

Before Dak could even respond to Tendra and mention the reason she queued up all day, Code:Blue continued his speech. Or, perhaps, they started paying attention again and whatever he had said during their argument was an endless rambling consisting mostly of repetitions of “of course”.

 

“We had a little problem with our original plan – three members of Steamy Wasaka Stew could not be with us here today, so their frontman, Antonio Nokaarbe, will be performing with Pretty Dadanna and Deeply Religious.”

 

“W-what?” Doria put her hands on her mouth. “What is that supposed to even look like? This bootdisk will be worth a pretty credit someday, it’s too bizarre to even comprehend. R-right, Tendra? …Tendra?”

 

It was not the right moment for a normal conversation. The five musicians got onstage – Koobs doing what looked a lot like a Twi’lek belly dance routine, to Code:Blue’s horror, Anra with his trademark blank expression, Antonio trying to be as calm as he could and flexing his muscles by habit, Pretty Dadanna walking like a nexu on a prowl. Charon ran out in front of the crowd last and got hold of the closest repulsormic, grabbing it like a hungry predator.

 

“Prog, Saccorata!”

 

Tendra got her eyes off Antonio for a moment and clapped her hands. “By Sarcophagus, he knows how we greet each other!”

 

The crowd seemed to agree with her. Charon was greeted by a wave of ovations that even the Sacorrian Triad would have been jealous of. He smiled broadly.

 

“As you have heard from our host for the night, the program has been changed. While I am sorry that three of our friends from Steamy Wasaka Stew were de…” Fifty thousand souls went silent for a moment. “…finitely unable to join us, I am sure that we’re going to have a good time tonight. Let’s go crazy!”

 

With those words, Anra played a short bassoon intro and Deeply Religious blasted into Wanna Do Nothing With Me?, one of the lesser-known songs off their breakthrough album, Poodoo! Antonio seemed confused by the fact that he had to sing backing vocals, so he settled for lip-synching. What surprised him more is that Pretty Dadanna knew every single word of the song.

 

_Doing nothing when you drink your bantha milk_

_Doing nothing when you play a round of dejarik_

_Doing nothing when you're cleaning your speeder._

_Come on!_

 

_I do nothing all the time_

_Come and do nothing with me!_

_Nothing with me!_

 

_Doing nothing when you light up a deathstick_

_Doing nothing when you attempt a mind trick_

_Doing nothing when you're refilling the feeder._

_Come on!_

_I do nothing all the time_

_Come and do nothing with me!_

_Nothing with me!_

 

Backstage, Code:Blue could not believe his ears. Did that Valorum just…just advocate deathsticks? Also, what on Sacorria was a “mind trick”? He turned to the person next to him.

 

“Did you….did you hear that?”

 

This was definitely not his day. Right there, in his flamboyantly disgusting attire of bright colours and shiny silk, was his archnemesis, Code:Red.

 

“Uh-oh. You’re in trouble…Crybaby!” A mouthful of jewel-adorned teeth flashed for a second. “I bet that The Triad is not going to like this. Now, how could you have invited somebody who sings about spice and debauchery over?”

 

“I…didn’t notice any debauchery.”

 

Code:Red snickered. He had been looking for a way to get rid of Code:Blue, but the opportunity had never presented itself before.

 

Meanwhile, Deeply Religious were performing what was more or less their regular set of old songs. After well-received renditions of _Gamorrean Hard Case_ and _I Miss Her_ , Pretty Dadanna got onstage to sing one of her hits and the band had a five-minute-break. Anra walked up to Charon.

 

“You’ve got to do it. This is our only chance.”

 

“I’m aware of it. I’m also aware that the same group of security officers that was at the spaceport is right below us. This cannot be a coincidence. Somebody has figured out that we are not here by accident.”

 

“It was you who said that nothing ever is an accident. Let’s do it.” Anra looked over at the drum set. “Master Koobs, you in?”

 

“You bet I’m in.”

 

Charon took over the repulsormic from Dadanna.

 

“We have decided that tonight is a special night, so…we are doing something that we have never done before. We are going to perform the whole of our new album, Emperor of Air and Darkness, right here, before you!”

 

The crowd seemed to be mostly unaware of the group’s latest offering; they were waving, jumping and cheering on Charon.

 

_Oh it bites that you_

_Can’t say what you want_

_In the world we live in_

_New Order!_

_Kriff the New Order!_

 

_Tarkin is dead_

_But Vader’s cold hand_

_Is right behind you_

_New Order!_

_Kriff the New Order!_

 

_Come sing with me,_

_Come raise your voice,_

_It bites!_

 

_Come sing along,_

_This is your song,_

_It bites!_

 

_Oh it bites that we_

_We can’t play what we want_

_In the hell we live in_

_The Empire!_

_Kriff the Empire!_

 

_Death Star is gone,_

_But there’s a new one_

_Right above you_

_The Empire!_

_Kriff the Empire!_

_Come sing with me,_

_Come raise your voice,_

_It bites!_

 

_Come sing along,_

_This is your song,_

_It bites!_

 

After a lengthy quetarra solo on the edge of the stage, Charon managed to duck a single boot flung his way from the audience. He pointed in the direction the boot was thrown from.

 

“You’re a fan of the Empire, aren’t you?” He pretended to be holding binoculars towards the unknown offender, then stood on one leg and grinned. “Well, I’ve got news for you, Sacorrians. What you know as the Galactic Empire has nothing to do with what it really is. The leaders of your planet, your beloved Sacorrian Triad, made a pact with them: for as long as they can stay in power, they will be the puppets of the New Order. Now, in a couple of days, it will turn out that I never told you this and that tonight isn’t real…so, try to remember this very moment before you’re brainwashed into your ‘progressive’ life once again.”

 

The crowd clapped frantically. That was the only thing they were capable of doing at large gatherings. Somewhere in or near Dorthus Tal City, the Sacorrian Triad had all the right to feel threatened. There was a reason for the five-figure bounty on Charon San Valorum’s head. A very, very good reason.

 

“Did he just say that there was a new Death Star?” one girl in red shirt asked another.

“Wasn’t the Death Star that thing that was set on fire on the Nolerday some years ago, in honour of progress and unity?”

 

“Why would anything be set on fire in the honour of progress and unity, come to think of it?” added their friend in a yellow shirt.

 

The girl in red turned around to see a pair of Drall students converse in their native language, using more expletives than was typical of their otherwise well-behaved species. Whether Deeply Religious were right or not, they got everybody doubtful about what their supreme rulers endorsed.

 

Following _EMERGENCY EMERGENCY_ , _(Imperial Uniforms) Look Bad On You_ , _Empire Day Rituals_ and _Fancy a Vacation on Kashyyyk?_ came a very welcome Koobs drum solo. The audience was more or less shocked by the last song. To most Sacorrians, there was no difference among Humans, Drall and Selonians – everybody was equal, had equal work opportunities and social rights and, despite the rigorous laws and surveillance, things such as slavery were unheard of. The Selonians in the audience seemed more enraged than the other two species’ youth: just like Wookiees, they were large, strong and agile, and the idea of somebody using them as slaves made them fearful and aggressive. Despite twenty-five millennia of indoctrination by countless incarnations of the Triad, their hive mind was never truly gone – just repressed. And, at this very moment, their minds were buzzing and an instinct long gone was calling them to action.

 

To make things worse, no legislative body other than CESA was present at the event. And the two CESA workers seemed like they did not want to have anything to do with this.

 

Code:Blue was, at this point, chanting “of course” to himself, staring at the railing, with tears flowing down his face, while Code:Red could not stop laughing at him.

 

Their act was cut short by a Drall intelligence officer. She came up to Code:Blue and offered him a handkerchief.

 

“Glisse, you were manipulated into this by powerful outside forces whose only goal is indoctrination of youth.”

 

“Brigada?” He remembered the name of the head of the security from the spaceport. She nodded.

 

“We have received a communiqué from Her Drallship and she said that she is well aware of who is behind all this. We will have the offender arrested and dealt with after the event.

”

“And what about me?”

 

“Yeah, what about the Crybaby?” Code:Red asked, still laughing.

 

“Comrade Glisse is to receive a paid leave for the next month. He is clearly overworked and overworked comrades are more prone to manipulation. And you, Comrade Zhoorka, will take over his duties. You can start…tonight, by personally dealing with the offender. We need all the information we can get from him.” Brigada’s right ear twitched in the direction of the stage, as she heard another k-blast in ‘Not Your Kind’. “He is quite dangerous, that young man!”

 

…

 

After the last song from _Emperor of Air and Darkness_ was played, the Drall crowd was swearing like never before, the Humans were singing whatever bits of songs they could remember and most Selonians were still standing in their places, shocked. Had somebody seen a holovid from the Grain Night Fest, they would have never guessed that it had taken place in the middle of Sacorria.

 

Prompted by ovations, Charon and Anra returned to the stage with Dadanna and Antonio, the latter looking slightly out of place. The diminutive pronker was carrying a different quetarra, seemingly more sophisticated than his holosticker-covered homemade one – an Ebanze Nebula.

 

“Hope we gave you the blast you will never forget tonight! Now our friend Antonio Nokaarbe, with Pretty Dadanna and myself on backing vocals, will sing a very special rendition of his band’s biggest hit, Underlevels. As you know, the song was composed by his bandmate Anjie Mencuri, and I hope that a mere three-chord player like me can do it some justice. I borrowed this Nebula from Dadanna’s band members, so a huge kriffin’ thanks to them!”

 

“I’m nervous!” Antonio had completely lost his inhibitions after having taken the whiff of Sacorrian Iris presented to him backstage. “You’re going to get us murdered here! All those things you said…”

 

Charon ignored his question and pulled the repulsormic towards himself.

 

“What is he doing?” Tendra nudged Doria and “Why doesn’t he let Antonio sing already? An-to-nio! An-to-nio!”

 

“What’s hyping, Saccorata?” he asked the crowd. “This group over here seems to be particularly wild. What do you say I pick one of these people to sing with us? We will need a backing vocalist for the chorus!”

 

“Antonionionionioniononionionon!” Tendra’s chant was getting unintelligible at this point.

 

“Yeah. I like onions, too…but they make me sick sometimes.”

 

She looked up. Charon was standing right above their spot on the barrier.

 

“How about you?” He pointed to the middle of the front row.

 

“Me?” Tendra squealed. “To be up there with you and…Antonio?!”

 

“Yes, yes, yes!” Koobs yelled from behind the drum kit.

 

“Not you, her.” Charon blasted Koobs with his angriest of trademark pronk looks. “The brunette, not the blonde. “Security droids, bring me the girl in yellow.”

 

Doria didn’t even get a chance to say no. The hands of a nearby security helper droid had already picked her from her standing place and dragged her over the narrow aisle.

 

“Tendra, help me!” she managed to say at last.

 

“You’ll be fine. Tell Antonio I love him, in case they keep you up there,” her friend yelled behind her, but what she said next was drowned out by the chants of the crowd behind her and some strange, deep sound that she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

 

Once her feet touched the duraplast stage floor, she looked at the crowd and swallowed a lump. Charon appeared as if he expected her to run up to him. And she was just standing there, afraid that the swarm of shirts, all of them suddenly looking bright red, was going to laugh at her. Ultimately, the singer walked up to her himself and took her by hand. He shooed the repulsormic away and decided to encourage his volunteer quietly.

 

“Come on.”

 

“I…don’t like crowds,” she said. “Also, my friend Tendra is the one who…”

 

“Don’t worry. All you have to do is sing along to what I’m singing. Don’t listen to Nokaarbe, he can’t sing to save his life!” Charon winked and patted Doria on her shoulder. She attempted to smile, but she ended up with nothing but her usual morose facial expression.

 

“Oooh, a little boy!” Antonio clapped his hands and pointed at Doria. “I like them with bright hooves!”

 

Dadanna chuckled and gestured to Doria to stand next to her. As she finally managed to steady a smaller repulsormic in front of her face, she remembered that she did not tell Charon that she couldn’t sing even if her life depended on it. She nervously surveyed the crowd, looking for Tendra, but there was nobody next to Dak and a blonde bun was now in the aisle below her, next to the uniformed Drall woman that she recalled seeing earlier that day, right before she and Dak had switched shirts. . Did Jhorn Risant do something for her daughter to see Antonio up close? If so, why did she accept the spare ticket from her, in the first place?

 

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this!” Doria found herself talking to nobody in particular. Charon was already strumming the intro to the song that had been in her head all day.

 

And Antonio Nookarbe was lost at this point. Whatever he was singing, it was clearly not _Underlevels_. The crowd, at this point definitely angry with what they were told earlier, was starting to go crazy. The strange, low sound Doria had heard a little earlier seemed to be overpowering the music from megahailers and she realised it was coming from the Selonians in the crowd. It did not sound like Basic. It did not sound like Mandaba.

 

Another much louder sound suddenly stopped the music. Anra noticed that no sound was coming out of his bassoon and Koobs trumpeted out of sheer fear. A guided missile appeared from the hill in the distance and it was heading straight for the stage.

 

“Doloria!” Pretty Dadanna pointed to the missile. “They’re at it again!”

 

“D…what? Can I spread that on my bread?” Antonio said, his speech unusually slurred.

 

“You non-progressive piece of bantha fodder! They’re an assassin cult. Run!”

 

Before Antonio could manage to form a coherent sentence, Dadanna was carrying him on her back. At this point, he had a good view of her behind. But he was pretty sure it was a turbolaser chewing gum.

 

Doria could not move. The missile seemed to be heading towards her. Charon, who by this time ran after the other musicians, saw her and turned around.

 

“Let her go!” Koobs trumpeted again. “We need to get away from here!”

 

Charon didn’t listen. He was running back to Doria, who was still in front of his repulsormic, petrified.

 

“Watch out!” he yelled, pushing Doria to the floor. The guided missile hit the railing and made its way to the barrier, where Dak was standing. Doria closed her eyes and grabbed Charon’s hand. The blast threw the two of them far from the edge of the stage.

 

And then, it got dark.


	11. Happy Grain Night

Doria opened one eye and sniffed the grass that had somehow gotten into her nose. She was alive. For whatever reason, she was alive. And not bleeding. One, two, three, four – all of her limbs were there and functioning. She took out her commlink and had just managed to light the space around her when she felt weight upon herself. Charon was lying on top of her, his nose on her feet and his legs on her head. He was moving, too, poking her ribs with his elbows. He was about her height, but in his semi-conscious state, he was sure heavy!

 

"Get off me. You're all skin and bones. You will leave me bruised!”

 

"A nice thing to say to somebody who just saved your life, you know? Why are you yelling at me?” Charon tumbled over and found himself in the grass next to Doria. It was only then that he realised that they both were yelling and that they were somewhat lucky to have worn the red, government-issued ear plugs required at all music events on the agriworld.

 

”Now…where are we?" He tried to get up and realised that the top of his head was touching the duraplast stage from below. Luckily, he didn’t hit himself. One more bruise would have been too much.

 

Doria pressed her ear against the scaffolding. “We seemed to have rolled underneath the stage when the blast hit….somehow. I need to figure out how.” She quickly gave up listening, as it was impossible to hear anything other than the strange cackling sound of the Selonian hive mind further confused by the similar, but more threatening sounds coming from the Doloria, static noise from the megahailers affected by the explosion and occasional blaster hits – all of that accompanied by humming of Sacorrian Special Forces’ vehicles (modified Saygos, _of course_ ).

 

Charon crawled up to her on his elbows.  "Let's get out of here. Take me to…wherever you think is safe."

 

"Aren't we going to wait for the law enforcement? And what about your friends?"

 

Law enforcement. Law enforcement? What was wrong with these Sacorrians?

 

"If they're arrested, which I don’t think would happen, they'll actually be safer in the Dorthus Tal Prison than anywhere else in the Galaxy." He put his hand on her mouth before she managed to say something. "If I'm arrested, I'm dead, as your beloved Triad will extradite me to COMPNOR. There is a bounty on my head, y’know? We have no more than a couple of days to get out of here before they realise what is going on!"

"What is COMPNOR?” Doria opened her eyes wide. “Wait, don’t answer that. Why is there a bounty on your head?”

 

By now, Charon was shaking his head.

 

“I have a lot of kriffed-up poodoo to explain to you, but before that, take me to a place where nobody will find me!”

 

“You are not threatening me with a blaster to do that, are you?” Doria cocked her head. She seemed more suspicious than any accidental ally he gained in the past.

 

“I’m against blasters. I’m all for diplomacy. Just…just get me the kriff out of here!”

 

Doria nodded and lead the way with her comm light, with Charon crawling behind her. They managed to get to the fence right behind the stage.

 

“This is the way out of the concert field.”

 

“Wait, how are we going to cut through a durasteel fence?”

 

“Durasteel-schmurasteel, this is only a plowed dust corn field. It’s rope. Look!”

 

And indeed it was rope. After some chewing and tearing, Doria and Charon were free. They moved through the nearby bushes, over the fields to the last residential buildings of the Northern District, not turning around to look at the riots developing and the army stepping in. The streets seemed to be more or less deserted, the working class residents were most likely in their beds already, blissfully unaware of what was going on in their neighbourhood.

 

“So, this is where I live.” She pointed to a bunch of apartment blocks in the distance. To him, they all seemed more or less the same. “Oh, poodoo…I just remembered that I have to show up at Duchess Branna’s Grain Fest banquet for at least a little bit. How can I go there with _you_?"

 

“Why is this important right now? Do you even understand that you’re my accomplice and that we need to get you and whomever you care about and who could end up as an accidental target off this planet?”

 

“Do _you_ even understand that my mother would claim that I’m a failure who always betrays her family and does not behave like a proper whatever and that she would be bringing me to tears for the next couple of months…years?” Doria kicked a pebble and turned to Charon. “Consider this your alibi, comrade…unprogressive…criminal!”

 

"An alibi? I’m all up for it. Introduce me as a friend of yours, whom you met at the show."

 

“I am going to be in trouble for wearing Dak’s shirt, anyway. I don’t want to be in any more trouble than that with my mom.”

 

Charon was about to say something, but he changed his mind. This local girl seemed a bit thick and telling her that Dak was almost certainly killed by the Doloria missile would have led to a lot more questions that he had no answers to, at least not before they were safe. The more they talked, the more he began to realise  that whoever this rancor of a mother was, she may have been the person for whose safety he was now responsible.

 

And he didn’t like that. Not one single bit.

 

After some fifteen minutes of walking, they were in front of the only building other than the apartment blocks – a family house that looked as if it was built in the early hyperdrive era, with an adjacent meditation cave.

 

“This is the house of R’vanye…that belongs to the House of R’vanye. They led the efforts to colonise Sacorria, led by their Duchess Taranya. They have lived in Saccorata since pretty much day one, when it was just a handful of houses like this.”

 

Doria led Charon to the large door. He put on his best socially acceptable grin, as much as a mouthful of chapped teeth allowed him to. The house-of-whatever construct, mention of a Duchess and whatever history did scare him for a second. It did not sound like a place for a pronker to be at, but at this point, he would have accepted any kind of an alibi.

 

“Hmmm, the sensors are not working. Luckily, I have the keycard…”

 

She stuck in the keycard. For some reason, the slot suddenly seemed larger than before.

 

“Something is wrong here, Charon!”

 

He looked at the slot with one eye closed for a couple of seconds and then spat on the keycard and stuck it in again. Doria was disgusted. Ironically, this worked.

 

The main hall was empty. Each year, Drall children and their Human and Selonian guests were playing on the rickety stairs leading to the upper floor and using the railing for a bunch of limb-breaking and head-trauma-inducing games involving random household objects. This time, there was not a single youngling in sight.

 

“You said it was a banquet. A party? Is this how Sacorrians normally party? Because it’s kriffin’ boring!”

 

Doria hissed. This guy had a sense of humour that she could not understand, and it was not like she could understand anything about him to begin with. They proceeded to the dining room overlooking a large back garden. To their surprise, the lights were off. It took a couple of drallesque gestures to turn them on and when Doria looked to the ceiling, some of the tubes seemed to be broken.

 

“By progress and unity, w-what happened here?” Charon looked at the sole of his shoe, which appeared to be sticky. Then he pulled a shred out of it. “An orgy? A fistfight? Both?”

Indeed, the food on the large banquet table was dripping onto the floor, the bottles of expensive wines and Sacorrian whiskey were broken and the more steps Doria and Charon took, the more shreds they would step on. The shreds seemed to have been following a certain trail, dotted by blood, leading to an antique tilko wood armchair in the corner of the room with a large hole in its headrest. They walked to it, solely to spot a burn mark on the wall behind.

 

“Somebody was cornered here.” Charon pointed to the mark.

 

Doria looked behind the chair. About twenty centimetres below the mark lay the dead body of a Drall woman, stripped of all of her jewellery, with a blaster wound visible on her chest. She immediately recognised Gredda’s mother.

 

“Comradette Kutya! Comradette Kutya, no!” Her hands were shaking. “Charon! Charon, come here….somebody killed her. Charon? Answer me!”

 

Charon did not say anything. He too was dragging another body from below the cupboard. This Drall was smaller and stockier and killed on spot with a single blast through his right eye. The pronker sighed and closed his other eye as he placed him next to Kutya. It was only then that he spotted their identical collars, bearing an embroidered design of two Sacorrian irises. They must have been married.

 

“Danyle!” Doria was at the verge of tears. She didn’t even have the time to think of what could have happened here. The third body, of Gredda’s twin brother, Tessar, had slipped halfway from one of the chairs to the floor. Killed by two shots through his neck, he still had a broken glass in his hand, as if he had tried to use it against whoever attacked him; or, since he appeared to have been bleeding from his palm, had desperately tried to take his own life before it was taken away from him.

 

“These are wounds from an Imperial weapon and they’re very recent! Like, no less than thirty minutes ago!” Charon concluded. “Nothing to do with Doloria, so…may I be kriffed by a horde of rabid grey bears. My death was supposed to serve as a distraction for whatever the reason behind this was!”

 

Doria didn’t listen but gestured to him to follow her into the next room. They searched around the lower level of the house, discovering more and more dead R’vanye family and some of the clan members as she went, all still somewhat warm. She was checking their necks for vital signs, but whoever had carried the execution was not prone to errors. None of them was breathing anymore.

 

They were all killed while eating like Tessar, or trying to hide, like his parents; apart from two younglings who were executed with a single shot through both of their heads while sleeping on an ottoman in the trophy room. There was not one corpse of a non-Drall or non-R’vanye. Doria concluded that the guests had either left home before the massacre took place, or they were captured. Probably the former. How could one hide on Sacorria and have hostages?

"Dead…dead…dead…" She had counted twenty-three bodies by now. She was trying her best to appear calm, despite her urge to pass out and her wish to just run away from everything and scream her lungs out. But she was stuck with a comrade with bounty placed on his head – he must have seen a lot of it.

 

“Is anybody missing?” Charon asked.

 

“There is no Duchess Branna herself and…there is no Ebe, the youngest R’vanye. Of course, there’s no Gredda, either… my best friend…a great comradette. She had received an important work-related offer this morning and she departed for Corellia on the first available shuttle. So she couldn’t have been here. Unless it was a joke. Let’s check out her room. She was known to withdraw from parties.”

 

Seconds later, they were in Gredda’s room. There was a mess, typical from somebody who had packed in a hurry. There were no signs of fight. A lot of datacards and gadgets were arranged on a desk, with some more of them in the drawer.

 

“And this is normal to you?” Charon was observing what looked like an extremely outdated comm link. “Your friend departs, her whole family is killed, the Duchess is missing from the crime scene and Doloria was sent for me?”

 

Doria didn’t manage to respond. Something was moving underneath the desk.

“Watch out!” Charon yelled. She turned around and came face to face with an E-11 blaster rifle.

 

"Freeze!"

 

A red-haired woman came out of the armoire with a stunned Drall youngling in her arms. The hand she was holding the blaster in was shaking and she did not seem to know how to use it. Nevertheless, Charon raised his hands.

 

“Is that you, Doria? You’re screaming like a deranged avian in a soup pot!”

 

"M-mom?" Doria was surprised. "Are you trying to kill me?"

 

"I will stop trying to kill you when this young man stops trying to kill me!"

 

"What?" Charon had obviously had enough for the day. "Is _this_ your mother? Did _she_ kill all these people?"

 

"Comradette Maris Inesedam-Vorr to you. And this is Ebe.” Maris pointed to the youngling with the tube of the blaster, to Doria and Charon’s horror. “He is alive. I had to stun him so he would not give us away. And I only killed the one over there!” She pointed to the armoire she was hiding in. Inside there was a body of an Imperial Stormtrooper. “I was putting Ebe to sleep, as Kutya asked me to help with the younglings. And…”

 

"Okay…comradette Maris, we need to get out of here. Immediately. I know Sacorrians have a thing for waiting for the law enforcement, but once the riots are over and somebody calls the police, they will be likely to kill us too and add us to the death toll.”

 

“Riots? What riots? Doria, did you do something?” Charon nearly laughed as Maris, still playing nervously with the E-11, posed this bizarre question to her daughter.

 

“You don’t understand your own planet! Kriff this! Just get me out of here to wherever you live before somebody finds us!” He grabbed Maris’ rifle and pointed it at her. “Now.”

 

Maris shrugged and showed him the power pack in her hand.

 

“Whoever you are, you are stupid, you sure swear a lot and you have never taken a Progressive Self-Defense class. Then again, neither did this deadbeat daughter of mine.” She rolled her eyes and spat on the dead Stormtrooper. “Still better than this monster who kills unarmed younglings and the elderly.”

 

They headed out, Charon and Doria following Maris to the apartment building covered in vines across the street. Doria looked at the house behind them. Perhaps this was the right moment to cry, but she was still in a semi-euphoric state that prevented it. Was Charon telling the truth? Was every single thing she had believed up to this point in life a lie?

 

Something shining in the grass on the very edge of the garden stopped her repulsortrain of thoughts. It was too large for a grain fly larvae, but it was her progressive duty to destroy it, if it was one.

 

Instead, she recovered a simple necklace with a black solari crystal pendant, in the shape of a star, which her friend used to wear on her neck.

 

“W…why didn’t Gredda take this with her?” she said to herself.

 

“Come on, move!” Charon was getting impatient. She absent-mindedly put on the necklace and crossed the street.


	12. "The Truth"

Once at the Vorr apartment, Maris laid Ebe on the sofa and turned the viewscreen on, still holding the blaster rifle in one hand as if nothing had happened. There was no regular programme at this time of the night, only reruns of _The Saamans – Your Favourite Nolerian Family_ , to which she would fall asleep more often than not. This was understandable, as the Sacorrian Holocast Network were known to reprise the same holocomedy up to twenty times.

 

“If Ebe doesn’t wake up from this, he won’t wake up before the morning,” she said to Charon and Doria, who, unlike her, were slowly starting to catch up with their own shock.

 

Instead of the regular programme, SHN was displaying only news bulletins.

 

BREAKING HOLONEWS ::: BREAKING HOLONEWS ::: BREAKING HOLONEWS

 

**_A terrorist attack carried out by the Doloria killed two people at the Grain Night Fest!_ **

 

_Charon San Valorum, the singer and quetarra player of the Nubian pronk wailers Deeply Religious, along with an unnamed orange shirt were killed in a missile attack that occurred in the middle of the wailers' performance at the Grain Night Fest in Saccorata. While the body of the unnamed student has been sent to crime medicine specialists, it is assumed that Valorum was at the very centre of the explosion. It is believed that the terrorist attack was carried out by the Doloria, a radical cult of mostly Selonian assassins._

 

_Antonio Nokaarbe, the singer of Steamy Wasaka Stew, along with Valorum's two wailer mates, Anra Renek and Koobalt Nubes, will be interrogated about their connection with this tragedy._

 

_A couple of hundred people were injured in the chaos prompted by the explosion, but nobody is in critical condition._

 

_No state of emergency is to be declared. The Triad urges all citizens of our planet to remain calm. Fear is not progressive!_

 

“Poor young man…wait, isn’t that you?” She pointed to Charon. “Doria! What is this dead man doing alive on our property? Answer me!”

 

Doria had barely managed to form a coherent sentence when another bulletin popped up on the screen.

 

**_Whole R'vanye clan found dead in their mansion in Northern Saccorata!_ **

_Twenty-three members of the R’vanye family, otherwise notable for being the Drall clan from which Taranya of The First Triad came, were found dead in House R'vanye, located at 17 Sublata Lane in Northern Saccorata._

 

_Three bodies were missing from the crime scene: that of the current clan leader, Duchess Branna, that of her youngling nephew, Ebe and that of the current candidate for the next Duchess, Gredda. It is assumed that all guests left the clan's traditional Grain Night banquet prior to the massacre taking place._

 

_Another body was found on the scene – that of a Human male, aged about thirty._

 

_It is currently understood that this massacre unusual on our peaceful planet is closely related to the terroristic attack that occurred at Grain Night Fest thirty minutes earlier._

 

Charon went to the window. The house across the street was now surrounded by Sacorrian police Saygos.

 

“Told you they would arrive.”

 

Doria finally sat down.

 

“Th…they censored this news item! Gredda was never supposed to be there in the first place, she left in the morning. And Duchess Branna…that reminds me. Mom, what happened to Duchess Branna?”

 

“She went to the garden to bring us some fresh herbs about fifteen minutes before a dozen Stormtroopers arrived. I did not see her after that. Did she pay for her whole family to be killed? I know they can be annoying, but…”

 

“Just where do you come up with all this nonsense, mom? Do you really think one of your best friends would do such a thing?”

 

“It was your dead friend who thought I killed them, remember?” Maris pointed to Charon, who finally sat down next to them.

 

Charon threw a quick glance at Ebe.  “That much is true, but you do have the kind of qualities that only cold-blooded killers have. Either way, you said that this massacre was carried out by Imperial Stormtroopers, and not your local army?”

 

“That’s correct. I heard somebody yell ‘Where is she?’ in a synthetic voice and then, there were screams, laser blasts and the sound of breaking glass. In the end, one of them counted the bodies and said that there was one more. A single Stormtrooper remained behind and searched the house. I found a pocket stunner on Gredda’s desk and used it on Ebe. Then, when the Stormtrooper came…” Maris stopped. “I am not sure how exactly I managed to jump on such a tall man, but I guess all museum custodians can do that…?”

 

Charon and Doria just looked at each other, confused. Maris continued talking.

 

“And then I almost killed my own daughter and her new friend, but you know that much. So, why is he not dead and why is he here, Doria?” She finally put the blaster rifle on the side table. “Also, that yellow tesh-tunic looks awful on you! Why are you wearing an inferior colour?”

 

“In the simplest way possible: Charon is obviously not dead, but you know that much. He pulled me onstage to sing and that was when the attack occurred. The missile was guided by something in his repulsormic, which was right in front of me. The next thing I remember, he pushed me and then we woke up a couple of minutes later under the stage railing.”

 

“Heeey, I didn’t even figure out the part with the repulsormic. Do you normally guide missiles?”

 

“We used something similar in a school project, a grey bear population control device.”

 

“Your schools are wacky…they teach museum workers to kill and students to guide missiles.” Charon scratched his nose. “Also, the orange shirt was the young man standing next to your daughter, Comradette I-forgot.”

 

“Maris Inesedam-Vorr! Doria, did you expose yourself to somebody?”

 

“By progress and unity, mom! You didn’t want to bring me a short-sleeve tesh-tunic, so Dak Gauree, who wanted to be topless to…I don’t know, prove something to Tendra, gave me his yellow shirt. Wait, does this mean that they think Dak’s body is my body? Am I dead, too?”

 

"So, here we are, two officially dead beings and a murderer the Triad will be likely to arrest pretty soon! This has got to be the best week of my life yet. Not that I’m not wanted across the sector already.” Charon shook his head again and tried to stick his finger into Ebe’s mouth. The Drall youngling was still fast asleep.

 

“Me?” Maris was aloof. “A murderer?”

 

"Yes, you. We have about two or three days before they figure out that I'm not dead, that the person who died wearing the orange shirt was, in fact, not the person who owned it and that there is an adult eyewitness to the massacre. Therefore, we have to get off this planet.”

 

“You are being ridiculous. We were supposed to leave for Vagran in about a week, anyway. I need enough time to pack. We’re supposed to remain there for three years…”

 

“Vagran? Perfect!” Charon clapped his hands and proceeded to tickle Ebe’s ear. “Just finish packing and we’ll head there before sunrise. Whom do you have there?”

 

“My aunt.” Maris pointed to a holo of a small, busty, grey-haired woman on the wall. “And Doria’s studies, since the little unprogressive piece of grain fly fodder was not accepted to Dorthus Tal University.” She paused. “Wait, before sunrise? I said I needed a week to pack!”

Doria slapped Charon on the hand just as he was about to pick one of Ebe’s whiskers. She wanted to say something, but Maris continued. “We do have permission to leave Sacorria at any given time this month. But we don’t have a ship.”

 

“The blonde girl.” Charon’s response came faster than she expected.

 

“The blonde girl? Tendra?” Doria turned to Maris and Charon again. “What does she have to do with this?”

 

“Not her. I only spent one day on this planet, but if I understand how these Sacorrian things work, she wears red and somebody pulled her out of the mosh pit minutes before the explosion. My guess is that somebody in her family works for your delightful establishment. Since this is Sacorria, it’s got to be her dad.” He scratched his nose. “I’m talking about the other blonde girl.”

 

“Who? Why not Tendra?”

 

“Why not Tendra?” Charon repeated the last sentence, mocking Doria’s voice. “If nothing else, with my option, we get to have a small starcruiser, with enough space for you, your mother and your luggage – the latter including me and the sleepyboy. I will give you the comm code.”

 

“I will…comm that person in the morning, then.” She said and headed to the ’fresher. “I’m in extreme need of a long, refreshing, sonic.”

 

“No, comm her now.” Charon was slowly losing patience. “Also, what you call ‘sonic’ on these planets with lots of water is not what we would call sonic on Nubia.”

 

Doria ignored the latter. “Whoever she is, I don’t want to wake her up.”

 

“Just comm her!”

 

“Are you nuts? People sleep at this time!”

 

“It’s a high time you meet a Sacorrian who does not blindly abide to these rules of yours.”

 

…

 

The two members of Deeply Religious, Antonio Nokaarbe, Pretty Dadanna and two CESA officials were sitting in a large interrogation room. Brigada was nervously pacing around and pressing digits on her unusually large comm link-like device. No matter what she did, the gadget would return a red light and two short beeps. The four musicians were quiet, and for good reason. Once they were off the stage, expecting to be evacuated for what had grown into a nasty riot, the two Humans and the Drall had just ordered them to put on black helmets provided by the Selonian security officers. Since then, they had been sitting in the dark for about one standard hour, waiting for someone – they didn’t know whom.

 

The commlink surrogate beeped twice and returned a green light.

 

“The last shuttle has finally arrived.” Brigada was relieved. “Not even Their Leaderships have time for everything, but they made it!”

 

On her command, Code:Blue and Code:Red removed the vision-blocking helmets from the other four beings’ eyes. It was about time.

 

“Where is Charon?” Anra looked around to see who was with him.

 

“Forget Charon…where are we?” Koobs seemed disappointed. “And where is the pretty girl?”

 

“Comradette Risant’s father came to pick her up in his new Saygo,” Red said in the Ortolan’s face. “Have you ever considered buying one, by the way?”

 

“There’s no kriffin’ way in hell I would ever buy that piece of poodoo…” His trunk went up seconds before Brigada’s stunner worked its magic.

 

She looked at the large blue body on the floor and then turned to Anra.

 

“Have you ever considered a Saygo?”

 

He swallowed a lump and nodded. “Yes, I will gladly buy a Saygo.” He hoped that his perpetually neutral Duros expression would still convince the Drall that he was delighted by the suggestion forced on him. “But where is Charon?”

 

Brigada stood still.

 

“I am almost certain that Comrade Valorum perished in the explosion set off by the enemies of our world order, the Doloria. We didn’t find any organic matter left behind. The second body has been sent to the post-mortem facility of the medcentre in Curheg, as they’re the only ones capable of dealing with extreme…I mean, complicated injuries. But we are almost certain that it’s the young girl comrade Valorum pulled onstage with her.”

 

“That is absolutely tragic! Be strong, comrade!” Dadanna hugged Anra, much to Antonio’s dismay. “But why are we here? And where is this?”

 

“Comrades Glisse and Zhoorka and I are not authorised to reveal the whereabouts of this secret location to you. We very much regret that, but it’s the protocol.”

 

“It’s not progressive, yadda yadda.” Antonio tried to mimic the Drall officer’s movement and speech, but the next thing he knew, Brigada’s stun device was stuck in his throat.

 

“I love that holoflick you were in, Sky Riders.” This prompted a grin from her captive. “My favourite part is the one when you’re blasted in the foot!” she added sotto voce, watching Antonio’s facial expression change seconds before he began to scream. This was not the female officer fantasy he wrote about in ‘Master Lover’. Not at all!

 

“I…I will be quiet, pretty lady…”

 

“No, you will just be quiet. Their Leaderships are about to interrogate you and the three witnesses.” Brigada looked at stunned Ortolan on the floor. “Okay, two.”

 

Just as she said this, the holoprojector in the middle of the room started flicking.

 

“Wait, please. Buy Saygo! Please, wait,” a synthetic voice announced. Three figures in red coats, wearing glareshades, materialised on the holoprojector before the group. One appeared to be a Drall woman, one was a Selonian, and one was a bald Human man with a thick moustache. Anra and Antonio looked on as the four Sacorrians dropped to their knees.

 

“By Progress and Unity, we salute Your Leaderships!” they all exclaimed in unison. Seconds later, Code:Blue added, “…of course!”

 

“Are these the suspects we’re looking for?” The holographic index finger of the smallest Triad members pointing to the muscular Human male. She appeared to be speaking in a synthetic voice herself. “This is the one wanted by the Empire, Blobbo’s Crime…what was it…Commune and the Doloria?” The hologram’s whiskers were now projected on Antonio’s face.

 

“Of course!” Code:Blue got up and pulled a datacard from his suit pocket. “This is what arrived this morning, right before Comradette Brigada and I went to pick up our guests at the Central Spaceport. You ordered us to deport the rest of his wailer-group from the planet and keep him here.”

 

Antonio swallowed a lump. This didn’t look good. Not at all!

 

“Besides, we’re pretty sure that it was he who had the Doloria sent to get rid of the late Comrade Valorum!” Code:Red pointed to Anra and the stunned Koobs. “Perhaps Valorum’s wailer-mates are willing to testify on this.”

 

“You will not testify on this matter, Comrade Zhoorka.” The Human Triad member hit the palm of his left hand with his right fist. “You know what you’re in charge of, so that is what I’m expecting for you.”

 

“Yes, your Humanship!” Red started counting on his fingers. “The Grain Night Fest. Held on one square kilometre of otherwise arable land which is in its idle year. Twenty-five tons of railing. Twelve tons of flooring. Thirty tons of foodstuffs. Three hundred forty-five injured comrades. Two dead.”

 

His Humanship nodded and turned off the hologram for a moment.

 

Just then, Koobs woke up.

 

“Where is the pretty girl?”

 

Brigada shrugged and stunned the Ortolan again. The hologram was back on. Luckily, Their Leaderships didn’t get to see _that_.

 

“We had a little talk, her Selonianship, his Humanship and I.” Her Drallship walked in front of the group. “Transport the three offworlders to the Dorthus Tal Prison. We have all the rights to assume that Comrade Nokaarbe is guilty of orchestrating this brutal attack and we will interrogate him again tomorrow. The two other comrades will be interrogated about their late comrade’s threatening speech against us and the Galactic Empire!”

 

Antonio was horrified. He started yelling. "I didn't do anything! Yeah, I hate his little guts, but I would not wish anything like that on –"

 

He didn’t get to finish the sentence. One of Brigada’s stunner bolts hit him in the rear, and he fell on top of Koobs.

 

“Thank you, officer.” The small projection clapped her pawlike hands. “Your Selonianship?”

 

The tallest figure pointed to Dadanna. “Comradette Sarkle, we are big fans. Huge. Just keep on doing what you’re doing and reporting threats to progress and unity to our trusted CESA employees. You may now go. A shuttle will pick you up outside…I mean, at the first available non-secret location. Do you have a problem with that?”

 

Dadanna got up and headed for the blast doors as fast as she could in her high heels.

 

“You traitor!” Anra jumped off his seat. Brigada turned to him. To her surprise, he took the stunner from her hands.

 

“It’s alright, I will stun myself.”

 

With these words, he pulled the trigger and fell onto Antonio and Koobs. Brigada bit her tongue. There was nothing more bizarre than a stunned Duros. Perhaps a stunned Neimoidian? She heard of those, but she never saw one.

 

“Great work, officer.” The Human member of the Triad pointed to Brigada. “Thanks for thinking about our very limited time. Anything we can do for you? You know your rights…”

 

Brigada bowed again. “Nothing, your Leaderships. I am hereby requesting to transfer my right to a two-week leave to here present Comrade Joak Bluestar…hey, what is your last name? I know you as Code:Blue!” She shrugged and looked at the fair-skinned Human next to her.

 

“Your request will be honoured. Comrade Glisse, you may go home now. If we need anything else from you, you will be contacted through the usual channels. You may now go.”

 

“Of course, the usual means, your Leaderships! Thank you!” Code:Blue bowed to the hologram. “I can finally join Dani and the children, like I had planned two weeks ago!”

 

“And me?” Code:Red asked.

 

“Comrade Zhoorka. We want you to get hold of Comrade Jhorn Risant and Comradette Nola Katisver from the Ministry of Defence, as well as generals Roko Porkley and Gordi Gauree.” Her Drallship was counting on her short, thick fingers. “The Imperial liaison officer to CorSec will arrive from Coronet City in the afternoon for an urgent meeting regarding these unrests.”

 

“What? CorSec is working with the Galactic Empire?” Brigada thought to herself as the hologram finally faded away and she and Code:Red walked down the long spiral stairs from the Interrogation Room. “Something seems to be very wrong here.”

 

She scratched her muzzle. The sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Sacorrian system had to be preserved, whatever it takes. Perhaps she was doubting Their Leaderships in a way that was unprogressive and unsuitable. She swallowed a lump and made sure she was not turning towards Comrade Zhoorka, lest he notice the doubt on her face. Would he have reported her for non-progressive thoughts and obstruction of the system? Moreover, was she obliged to report herself for these things? She raised her hand, but changed her mind, prompting a shrug in her companion. At the end of the day, this little moment of doubt was not unprogressive – it only made her trust Their Leaderships more.

 

_After all, they knew what they were doing._

****

****


	13. The Truth

Code:Blue returned to his home on the southern cape of the Dorthus Tal island. GR-3, who was patiently waiting for the interrogation to be over, parked the speeder close to the villa, in order not to wake up the chickens and numerous other animals that her Master kept in the more secluded areas of the spacious garden full of lush trees. She got into the house first and sat on a chair in the hall, waiting for him to deactivate her for the night, which he promptly did.

 

Did he just hear the chickens wake up? At night? He must have been hallucinating.

He shrugged and grabbed a dust-corn-and-milk drink with extra sugar added from the conservator and sat down on the large cornersofa in the combined kitchen, dining and living area with huge windows, overlooking the sea. The distant lights of continental part of Racottia were sparse, with no large cities between the Island and the border with the neighbouring Berssia prefecture to the east. He kicked off his shoes, as a pair of tumble bunnies, the pets he got at the same time as his chickens, jumped out of an open cage in the corner and ran to him for some much-wanted cuddles. After a day as hard as this, he was feeling adventurous – his small feet were on the small club table, something generally frowned upon.

 

“This is strange…” He looked to the bunnies, as one by one, they climbed on the sofa and curled up next to him. “I don’t remember getting you out of the cage when I left for Saccorata this morning.” He took a large sip of his beverage and scratched the smallest bunny behind its three ears. “I should probably comm Dani, if she’s awake over there on Vagran and all, of course.”

 

Seconds later, he activated the holocomm and a flickering figure of a long-haired woman appeared.

 

“Where have you been? I’m worried! You have not contacted me and the younglings and the last thing you told us was that the festival was a high-risk event!”

 

"Dani, I got a paid leave." He responded. “I am going to join you after I’ve got some sleep, of course. They’re having an emergency meeting at some point later and even though Their Leaderships granted me a leave personally, I don’t want _him_ to overrule the decision. You know what he’s like, of course!”

 

“Emergency meeting?”

 

“Haven’t you heard what happened?” He was surprised. “The Doloria. Again! The chaos! I don’t understand why that assassin cult hasn’t been dealt with yet! Of course, Their Leaderships know what they’re doing and perhaps they need the Doloria to protect us from that Rebel Alliance terrorist group, but still…?!”

 

Three other, much smaller projections joined Dani’s, waving to their father. She showed them to be quiet and continued. "The last time you said that, you were suddenly asked to change an event organisation plan and that took you two weeks."

 

“I promise, I’ll be with you later in the morning, of course!”

 

The projection of Dani shook her head before Code:Blue pressed the switch and remained alone once again. His family – _of course_ – did not understand how many duties Code:Red and their joint supervisors were leaving to him. Perhaps it did not seem believable? Either way, he was not up for thinking about it – he had mere hours to sleep before his little hyperspace jump to the neighbouring system.

 

Just then, the bunnies squeaked and ran away. He turned around, solely to end up face-to-face with the E-11 blaster rifle.

 

"Hands up, Glisse. C’mon, move it!"

 

The figure holding the blaster came out of the shadow. A busty Drall woman with a pair of dark eyes, sporting tan fur, about one and half metres tall, wearing a necklace with a dozen of little black stars.

 

And Comrade Glisse knew her very well.

 

"D...duchess Branna of R'vanye?" His hands went down for a moment. He wanted to pinch himself and make sure he wasn’t dreaming, but the blaster was dangerously close to his chest once again.

 

The woman nodded. "That's right. And you are going to help me."

 

"Of course!" He barely managed to utter. Never before did the two meaningless words he used in nearly every sentence seem more meaningful. “But you, you are alive!”

 

“That’s the problem I have with government apparatchiks like you – you don’t know what’s going on, and you don’t even know the official version, because what you get is some third take on things, reserved just for beings like you.”

 

She slowly walked to the other side of the cornersofa and sat across her hostage.

 

“You’re wondering what I’m doing here, right? If there is anything I know - having been considered for the Triad some time ago and having refused to be a part of that farce - it’s that this tiny little cape is the only section of the island that is out of the reach of the Watchtower Base.”

 

“It is?!” Code:Blue’s trademark grin was now an undefined, downright strange grimace. “But how did you make it to this place?”

 

“Your speeder has a trunk and you were in Saccorata, right?” Duchess Branna rolled her eyes.

 

“Yes, but I was also…of course…did you spend all that time here?”

 

“There are things you never knew you could do, my young man, but then you end up holding on to your dear life and pew, you’re suddenly capable of it.” She crossed her legs. "I was in the back yard. We had run out of ryoo and I cultivate my own herbs. By then, almost everybody-“ She stopped and grinded her teeth for a second. “-no, everybody other than us was gone. The next thing I know, a military transporter with a batch of Stormtroopers is hovering next to the gate. My instinct told me to run."

 

“Stormtroopers? On Sacorria? That's not true! That's impossible!" Code:Blue grabbed his head with both of his hands. This was where Duchess Branna put the blaster down. _He was too clumsy to be armed._

 

“Somebody else may be uttering those exact sentences right now, Glisse. Many things are too bad to be true. But they _are_ true. I will let you draw your own conclusions."

 

Branna got up. She was looking for something on the walls of the spacious two-level room. Above the empty tumble bunny cage, a grim painting was hiding behind the curtain. A black disc in the top middle section was surrounded by abstract shapes in shades of grey and neon-green.

 

“So, Gredda was right.” She said to herself, shaking her head. "Tell me, who gave this to you?”

 

Code:Blue walked to her. "I got this from her excellence, Dean Roula of Pelayn, from the University of Progressive Arts in Sublata. It was a gift for my third goal at the Galactic Limmie Cup five years ago. She said it was an artistic rendition of the crowd watching us and celebrating.”

 

“ _The_ goal?” Branna cocked her head.

 

“Yes, of course, that goal!” Code:Blue appeared to be expecting something, his face slowly pulling into a grimace again. But it wasn’t happening. He stopped for a moment. This woman was not imitating him or laughing at the mention of the said goal. Her face remained serious and her eyes stuck to the painting. A couple of minutes later, she whispered a couple of words that he recognised as serious insults in Drallish, and shook her fist at the painting. He was sure that she was crying.

 

“Are you alright?”

 

“No. How would you feel like if your whole family was dead? And no, I am not going to do your stupid baby burp thing, either. The only person who is going to do something here is you. You are going to take me to Vagran. Now.”

 

Code:Blue almost tripped on his own feet. “I’m tired! Of course, I need some sleep.”

 

“Of course, you do, you are one tired puppet…but your droid doesn’t.” Branna pointed to the corridor leading outside. “If you truly love Sacorria, you’re also going to make sure that this painting remains in your possession, no matter what.”

 

“Of course, it will. Tai, Aarla and Jenik love it! Especially Jenik, since that was the goal celebrating his birth.”

 

Branna smiled and shook her head. "Make sure you keep it in a safe place." She then took the blaster out again and aimed at Code:Blue’s chest. “Now, listen carefully. Before we depart, you will create a backdated record of the lecture on leadership I am holding in Abatore. It will turn out I had to go at the end of my own party.”

 

“But why Vagran?”

 

" Your family is vacationing there, right?"

 

"Yes, at the Esitania Hunting Grounds."

 

"And you got a paid leave?" She cocked her head and got herself into his face, to the point where he could see himself in her black eyes. What was it with dominant Drall women telling him what to do? "All traffic to Vagran is being re-routed from the new spaceport to the others...so you will leave me there and continue your journey to the southern continent."

 

“I…of course…but I still don’t understand why you need to go.” He gently tried to move the blaster away. “Their Leaderships will deal with whoever killed…”

 

"No, they won’t. Accept this as your first truth. You have not seen any truth in your life so far, so it may take some time for it to sink in."

…

 

The last thing Gredda expected after being sent on an important task that required an engineer like her was ending up on board a Star Destroyer.

 

What happened after the _Gozanti_ class cruiser landed on Corellia did not make much sense. Instead of a representative of the Corellian Engineering Corporation greeting her, an Imperial officer who introduced himself as Darse Loor and a pair of Stormtroopers escorted her to another starship and left. Minutes later, as she was having lunch with two other officers, the Star Destroyer made a jump into hyperspace.

After fifteen minutes spent looking at the dotted lines passing her by, she was worried. The Centerpoint Station, and the whole of Corellian System must have been way past them at the moment.

 

“Is everything okay, mistress Gredda?” one of the officers asked. “You are putting an empty spoon into your mouth repeatedly.”

 

The other officer stopped eating and silently pressed a digit on his comm link.

 

“No.” Gredda dropped the spoon. “Nothing is okay. I demand an explanation. And I demand it right now.”

 

“You are pretty smart…for a Sacorrian.” The first officer leaned over the table, his head held up by his elbow.

 

“There are many smart Sacorrians. It’s not our fault we don’t know what everybody has known since forever.” Gredda paused and finally took a bite. “Therefore, don’t lie to me.”

 

The man gestured to a protocol droid standing behind the table. Mere seconds later, an interrogation droid appeared.

 

“Only if you don’t like to me, either.” The officer pointed to the droid. “We heard you were the weapon specialist at AARIS.”

 

“AARIS makes complex agricultural appliances, to aid in the fight against parasites, a better harvest…”

 

The interrogation droid let a short wave of electricity to Gredda’s head. She screamed, prompting a grin from the officer.

 

“I shall repeat my question and you may respond as you see fit. We heard you were the weapon specialist at AARIS.”

 

“Yes. AARIS is seventy-five-percent dedicated to creating weapons.” Gredda swallowed a lump. “The remaining twenty-five-percent of our capacity indeed deals with agricultural appliances.”

 

“That’s better.” The first officer grinned. “And, as far as I have been informed of, you use solari crystals from an unspecified supply to power your modified and otherwise illegal ramships? Where is this supply?”

 

“This is the sacred secret of my clan’s ruling family!” Gredda protested, solely for the interrogation droid to extend an arm holding a syringe. It was dangerously close to her left eye. She snarled. “I am not telling you. A proud R’vanye doesn’t reveal this. Ask somebody else!”

 

The second officer nudged the first. “Does t Moff Jerjerrod allow that we tell her this?”

 

The first nodded and showed his comrade to be quiet, then gestured to the droid to step back.

 

“You see, mistress Gredda, there is nobody else to tell us this.”

 

“How do you mean?” Gredda’s neutral expression changed into a confused Orenth. The protocol droid put both of its silver arms on her shoulders, prompted by the second officer’s gesture.

 

The officer poured Gredda a glass from the bottle between them.  “Initially, we offered your world’s totalitarian rulers Imperial credits to purchase your services. You were expected to know this, be paid well and this would have been an offer you would not have been able to refuse.” He paused to fill his own glass. “But one of your rulers refused.”

 

“This…this doesn’t sound good.” Gredda said, as the protocol droid proceeded to massage her shoulders.

 

“The part with paying you was not a problem, but they refused credits.”

 

“That…that doesn’t sound like them!” Gredda finally took a sip of the beverage. It was Corellian whiskey, slightly weaker and less aromatic than the Sacorrian blend. “Why are we drinking alcohol?”

 

“To celebrate the beginning of a wonderful cooperation.” The officer raised an eyebrow. “And to honour your dead relatives. I am sure that they were loyal servants of both the Sacorrian system and the Galactic Empire!”

 

“M…my…what?”

 

“The Sacorrian Triad demanded that we dispose of the rest of the R’vanye family in order to be able to procure your services, mistress Gredda. And we sent a batch of our best men for the task.”

 

Gredda got up. “You killed my entire family?” The protocol droid held her back and she sat down again.

 

“My deepest condolences.” The second officer frowned. The first turned to him, his green eyes closing in on his comrade like a warship. “That was requested in order to have you delivered to us.” He then added himself.

 

“Roula!” Gredda screamed, prompting the interrogation droid to come back. “Nobody else could have come up with a ploy as outrageous as getting rid of the R’vanye clan in order to sell an engineer to the Galactic Empire.”

 

“We are not able to disclose any names, mistress. If you understand…”

 

“No, I don’t understand!”

 

Gredda closed her eyes for a moment. Holos of her mother, father, brothers, aunt Branna and the others were flickering through her mind, faster and faster. As a true R’vanye, she was taught to think of wins before thinking of loses. But there was nothing to gain. As an all-Sacorrian poster comradette, she knew that crying in front of authorities was not progressive. But there was nothing that was. Suddenly, the latter of these did not matter to her anymore. She was only sure that she was holding back tears because she did not want this man to see her grieve. Even though her subconscious was forming a flickering projection of Roula spitting on her aunt’s dead body, she did not want to be defeated. She could not have been defeated.

 

“Actually, I do understand.” She opened her eyes and pointed to the starfield visible through the viewport. “Where is my place in the big picture?”

 

“We are not allowed to give out any details to you. Once we have arrived to Sullust, we shall communicate a message to Moff Tiaan Jerjerrod. He will then meet you at a location we cannot disclose.”

 

Gredda nodded. “So, am I your prisoner?”

 

“Not if you have accepted your service to the Empire as your only choice.”

 

“I accept.” She said, with a sigh.

 

“Great.” The first officer put his palms together. “Ethree, escort her to her private quarters. She is probably going to need some time to contemplate and we have other things to do, anyway.”

 

“Yes, master.” The droid turned to the Drall. “Follow me, please.”

 

She followed Ethree to the turbolift, and then to living quarters on the lower level of the Star Destroyer. It was only when she was by herself, in a bunk way too luxurious for somebody who no longer had anybody that she began to weep.

 

…

 

A gold-coloured small cruiser by the name of _Tooka Whisperer_ stood in the corner of the private hangar at the annex of the Central Spaceport of Sacorria. Doria and Maris were waiting to board it, with Pretty Dadanna next to them.

 

“This must have been the stupidest starship name ever!” Maris ran her fingers over the writing close to the cockpit before getting in. “Why would anybody, in their sane mind, name anything after a euphemism for…”

 

“Shut up!” A voice spoke from inside of the largest container. The GR-series droid pushing the repulsorcart shrugged and left it in the main corridor of the ship.

 

Dadanna turned to Maris. “I have seen worse! This is pretty progressive compared to…Charon, what’s your ship name, once again?”

 

“Sticks.” Charon peeked from the container, having seen the droid’s back. “But seriously, you were stupid when you came up with this name.”

 

“Uh-uh! She’s not.” Doria stood between the container and Dadanna. “Just an hour ago, you were asking me to comm Tendra! After we had determined that I’m probably assumed dead.”

 

“I reminded _both of you dead people_ of that.” Maris left an incredibly heavy bag on the floor.

 

“I’m feeling guilty about leaving Tendra like this. She could be mourning me.” Doria took one last glance at the skyline of Saccorata through the spaceport’s transparisteel ceiling.

 

“Don’t.” Charon’s green eyes flashed from the container again. He could hardly wait to get out after the take-off. “She’s privileged. Somebody knew that the Doloria would attempt to kill me and that she was too close.”

 

“But she was always nice to me! Even when I was horrible to her!”

 

“Gold spoon in her mouth, Doria. Gold spoon.” Charon stuck his hand into his mouth. “Rich people with a fancy address code and a fancy dress code…” he snickered at his own joke. “…that is, people like her. They can be good, but they need to learn the hard way. And I’m sure her chance will come sooner than later. Dadanna, tell her how great you are, despite being stinkin’ rich. And tell her something about hard choices, too!”

 

“Tell her what?” Dadanna sat in the pilot seat. “That I’m a double agent, because somebody has to save innocent people from the Sacorrian Triad? That I contributed to sending Anra and Koobs to prison, because they’ll be safer there, than in hands of the Empire, being non-Sacorrians and all?”

 

“I may need some time to process this.” Doria took a step back. “The two of you are absolutely crazy.”

 

“Just wait until you meet the craziest of us.” Charon’s cool air burst into a lovestruck expression. 

 

“Mom, what do you think about this? Where are your smart comments now? Mom?”

 

Maris did not say anything. She was now holding Ebe on her lap. He was still sleeping peacefully.

 

“Just…just how many times did you stun that dralling?” Dadanna asked. Maris just shrugged.

 

“There is another thing.” Doria more or less talked to herself. “Gredda did not e-mail me yet. I have a bad feeling about this.”

 


	14. The Daring Ones

**_Anaslinea-Hoc, Vagran – 20 minutes later_**  
  
Ebe had woken up during the short flight from Saccorata to Anaslinea-Hoc. He could not utter a word. His eyes were open wide, his pupils smaller than a pinhead and he was shivering. Doria was the first to notice that he was no longer sleeping and she sat by his side.  
  
“Does this have anything to do with you, mom? Did you stun his vocal cords too?” She asked Maris.  
  
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Maris crossed her arms. “Have you seen how stupid my daughter is, Talon?”  
  
“It’s Charon.” The musician was doing his best to remain polite, something that he never thought he would have been capable of. “And the dralling is in a worrying state.”  
  
“There is hope, little one.” Dadanna turned away from the controls for a moment, just to run her fingers through Ebe’s fur. “You are in good hands." She got out of hyperspace and a lush green and blue planet popped up in front of them, slowly taking over the front viewport. She navigated to the Kaz'aan Bay, preparing the _Whisperer_ for landing.  
  
The Vagran spaceport looked incredibly small. Doria looked through the side viewport and wondered if the place seen across the grove from the belt was, in fact, deserving of a spaceport. Or Vagran, for that matter. The tiny town under a hill had what seemed to be a perfect trapezoid shape, apart from the lane just next to the seaside. Yet there was something radically un-Vagranite about it. Then again, when was the last time she had gone to Vagran? Must have been at least five years!  
  
"How in the name of the First Triad am I supposed to live here?" Maris snapped. "How does one live in a non-progressiv..."  
  
"You will be in good hands.” Charon patted her on the shoulder, much to his own surprise. “In fact, I cannot think of a better town for you. Anaslineans are all about love, love and more love. They’re the kind of people who hug random strangers."  
  
"Just what I needed. _More unnecessary kindness_.” Maris pointed to an enclosure on the seaside. “Is that a…sarlacc over there?" "I thought those didn't really exist and that they were a myth..."  
  
Doria looked at a piece of flimsi in her hand. "According to the leaflet I got from comrade Glisse when I accepted to relocate, the sarlacc on Vagran is of unknown origin and is on a special diet. Whatever that means.”  
  
Maris crossed her arms again. “I knew that.”  
  
“No, you didn’t?!”  
  
By the expressions the two were sporting, Charon could easily tell that this was not the first time Doria had caught her mother lying about something trivial. He decided not to get involved, as Ebe’s state of mind was far more worrying than anything else.  
  
"How come we have not seen it before?” Doria continued. “We used to vacation on Vagran, just not here. The spaceport was in the very centre of Abatore, on a large platform."  
  
“Sometimes, the most interesting of things are closer than we think.” The voice came from the pilot seat. “We’re about to land, so…Charon, are you going to hide again?”  
  
“Good joke. Not.” The singer scratched the side of his nose. “I’m not you. Not many people have heard of me. That said, it’s probably a good idea that you don’t get out at all. People are much more likely to recognise you and they will wonder what are you doing here, hours after a riot took place.”  
  
Dadanna nodded. She landed right at the line separating the spaceport from the sea and helped the group get their belongings out. She had to be back on Sacorria before anybody would notice that she was gone. After all, she had an interview and it could possibly lead to an exclusive, confessional book about last night – a story that she would have to modify a lot, but a good story, nevertheless.  
  
There was only one employee waiting at the spaceport, a middle-aged man with a cigarra in his mouth. He greeted the quintet the only way he knew.  
  
“ _Well come_ to Vagran!”  
  
Doria was absolutely sure that he pronounced that as two words. Maris ignored him and pushed the smoke away with her hands. Charon shook his head and picked Ebe himself. If Human heads had been detachable, these two would have forgotten them.  
  
A small figure with black glareshades and silver hair was waiting for the group to go through the decontamination facility. Her dress style seemed to be in a sharp contrast with her age – she wore a pink and black colour-block dress with a matching pink headscarf.  
  
"Doria! Maris! Finally! I have not seen you for a couple of years now! And…who are the handsome lad and the adorable little youngling?" She stood there, in disbelief. "Which one of you got married to this gorgeous specimen and adopted a Drall? And why didn't you tell me so? My speeder is over there!"  
  
She proceeded to shake the musician's hand, giving him a wink.  
  
"Charon, this is Larax Antilless, my late grandmother's younger sister. Larax, this is Charon…we met him yesterday. And Ebe is, err…Branna’s nephew."  
  
“Oh.” Larax frowned. “Sorry, Charon. But take that as a compliment!”  
  
Charon was, needless to say, confused. Larax wore a hairband that he had seen on Selonians on Sacorria earlier, yet she clearly had only one last name.  
  
"Young man, are you wondering about my headband, perchance? Well, my story is quite a curious one. I was born on Sacorria, so was my husband. But the system over there didn't like the idea of…"  
  
"In other words, my great uncle Denaro was a Selonian." Doria cut Larax's story short. "And that is why we could not have revealed that we do have accommodation on Vagran to Code:Blue."  
  
“Out of all possible Sacorrians, I end up stuck with you…” The wailer said, with a sigh. “Is this…your…speeder…oh. Oh.”  
  
And it was only then that he realised that Larax's bright pink speeder had only three seats. Doria took Ebe in her arms and Maris had to share her seat with Charon – which neither of them liked.  
  
"So, three days ago, I was a normal Sacorrian, working and minding my own business. Now I am heading to some stupid place and sitting on a scoundrel's lap."  
  
Larax turned around. "Oh, shut up, Mar. Maybe he should have sat on your lap."  
  
“Aunt Larax, _you’re piloting this vehicle_!” Doria reminded her.  
  
"I blame Doria for this." Maris continued. "Had she worked hard enough to be a red shirt, she would've been accepted to Dorthus Tal University and none of this would have happened."  
  
"Don't start this again, Mar. I warned you. Dodo is the only child in our family and…"  
  
Charon took a deep breath. “Can you argue some other time? We really need to get to the temporary headquarters of my assault team.”  
  
“Oh.” Larax went again. “And where is that? I thought we were going to my place in Abatore!”  
  


…

  
Five minutes later, the group stopped in front of a gigantic hedge. Three women were waiting for them – two standing still and one, visibly younger and taller than they, pacing around. The speeder’s arrival caught her by surprise. Then her face lit up.  
  
“Sweetcorn!”  
  
She rushed and picked up Charon in her arms as if he were a youngling’s toy, proceeding to kiss him on the lips. Maris stuck up her nose, Larax raised her eyebrow and the others just stood there, not quite realising what was going on.  
  
And then Doria opened her mouth wide enough to swallow a small freighter. The curly-haired girl seemed very familiar from a bunch of holos she had seen over the past year. She let Larax hold Ebe, walked up to the couple and absent-mindedly pushed Charon away.  
  
"It cannot be... BlaseTreeGoatAU?"  
  
"SeaMadeofGlass?" Deeina nearly dropped Charon. "H-how?" She turned to him again. "Did you trace my HyperYak mate? Are you absolutely ixxl poodoo mad...Sweetcorn?"  
  
"She cannot be mad at me if she calls me ‘sweetcorn’!" Charon winked at a confused Doria. "Well, I couldn't know how exactly they would attempt to get rid of me. This thing with the Doloria, I could not see it coming!"  
  
Doria’s expression was back to the resting Duros face. "I...I don't understand anything."  
  
"I do, don’t worry. My boyfriend almost had you killed last night."  
  
"My mother attempted to kill me herself, a couple of hours later.” Doria pointed to Maris. “What's your point?"  
  
Deeina smiled sheepishly. She could not recall the last time somebody did not attempt to physically hurt her and Charon after a wacky scheme that he had come up with on the fly and never told her about failed. Her chat mate, the only thing she had from a real adolescence as a spy, was right there, before her. And however that had come to be, she appreciated it.  
  
"I like you, SeaMadeOfGlass. I really do."  
  
"It's Doria Vorr of...of...never mind."  
  
"Deeina Ferry, of the Alliance to Restore the Republic."  
  
"What?" Doria, Maris and Larax said in unison.  
  
"Charon, just what exactly did you tell her?” Deeina put her arms on her hips. “Did you tell her anything other than your name?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Figures...this will be a long story. Longer than I thought it would.”  
  
One of the other two women, a thin angleberry blonde in her late twenties wearing white, coughed and poked Deeina in the shoulder.  
  
“Oh. Sorry. Everybody, this is my friend, Morusalba Kaeni.” Deeina’s remark was met with a sigh. “I mean, you should call her Emy, for short. The manager of what you see here. And this is her mother, Laoda. The owner of what you see here.”  
  
“You own the Galaxy’s largest bush?” Larax shook Laoda’s hand in an almost ecstatic manner. “That’s so, so, so exciting!”  
  
Emy rolled her eyes. She surveyed the group. The other two women who had just arrived were far less expressive than the old lady, thank Goddess. In fact, they were just like her, not expressive at all. _What was that face called again?_ She gestured to the group to get under the hedge and they stepped onto what appeared to be a terrace covered in apex trees.  
  
“Wow, beautiful!” Larax continued to stumble around in awe, nearly tripping over on duraplast tables and chairs scattered around. “And it’s _all yours_?”  
  
A Selonian in an apron stopped the group. He seemed pretty unfazed by Larax’s behaviour. After all, a couple of days on Vagran were enough for him to know what kind of a planet this was.  
  
"I am going to take this, if you don't mind."  
  
“You can take whatever you want.” Larax responded with a subtle wink.  
  
“I rather wouldn’t, thank you.” He turned away and proceeded to pick up Doria and Maris’ belongings.  
  
Maris was quick to protest. “What, we’re supposed to get an apartment! I don’t want to live in a gigantic bush.”  
  
“I only know the rough outline of what happened last night, but our cell’s intelligence advised against it.” Deeina pointed to Laoda. “This is the safest place for you right now, until we figure out how to escort you to the Outer Rim.”  
  
“She is the…intelligence?” Larax cocked her head and looked at the kind-faced woman who seemed to be of her age. Unlike her, Maris was furious.  
  
“Outer Rim? But my job! Her studies…Doria, did you arrange this in order to get a gap year?”  
  
“Mistress Vorr…” Deeina attempted again. But there was no use.  
  
“It’s lovely, this place!” Larax put her arm across her niece’s shoulders. “I am totally going to stay here for a couple of days myself! Can I, Mistress Intelligence? Can I?”  
  
Laoda shrugged and pointed to Emy.  
  
“Brother Valorum instructed us to give separate rooms on different floors to Sister Vorr and Sister Inesedam-Vorr. He will share the room with Sister Ferry. You can join Sister Inesedam-Vorr I guess. You missed breakfast, but I am going to get you some rotisserie small ibbot. And don’t smoke!” She abruptly stopped, seeing that Charon was about to light a cigarra.  
  
“Okay, okay…sorry!”  
  
“Thank you.” Emy nodded her head and took out a cigarra pack out of her pocket.  
  
“Wait, _you_ smoke!” Charon was now protesting. Deeina gestured to him to keep quiet.  
  
Emy finished her speech and pointed to the curly girl. “We are going to talk about what’s next for us to do tonight. Deeina?”  
  
“Yes. We are going to need a lot of luck and help from everybody we know to get out of this situation. There are only two sources where we could obtain what we needed and neither of them worked so far. Let’s hope that the cell working with Bothans is smarter than we are. And that somebody survives, unlike what was the case the last time around.”  
  
“The last time around…when…what?” Doria asked, but everybody ignored her.  
  
Emy and Laoda were nodding along as the speech progressed. Charon looked worried, but at some point, he mumbled something along the lines of “yeah, Bothans”.  
  
“But none of this would have been a problem hadn’t I, I mean, if ‘Dryxa Farr’ hadn’t convinced Blobbo the Hutt that she would trade Sweetcorn…sorry, newbies, that she would trade Charon San Valorum for the location, we wouldn’t have got the location. But nobody, nobody expected things to go wrong on Sacorria. Mom and dad…sorry, CraterLass13 and Foggy…they swore that the plan to get an expert that could help us off the planet would work. But the expert was absent by the time we got there and now we, Anra and Koobs have been captured…and we are stuck with three beings who witnessed a huge carnage. This confuses me…”  
  
“An expert?” Doria clutched her hands. “For what exactly?”  
  
“Blobbo. What a horrible name.” Maris stuck up her nose. “Sounds like a complete slob, if you ask me.”  
  
“We wishes he weres one.” Laoda spoke for the first time. “Blobbo…complete monster he are!”  
  
“But luckily,” Emy added, “a good deal of the town is against him and what he’s been doing to us over the course of the last 16 or 17 years or so. I don’t even remember how it used to be like before he came along. All of those people also support the Rebel Alliance. There’s a battle going on at – at…”  
  
“Hoth.” Deeina jumped in to help her friend.  
  
“Yes, Hoth. And whatever is going on there seems to be alarming. We need to watch out, uspeople here are on the Rebels' side.”  
  
This got Doria curious. "Is there anybody here who isn't? How is she" – she pointed to Deeina – “alive otherwise?”  
  
"Well, yes. About three quarters of the town. We also have a strong base of supporters of the Empire, as well as people working for Blobbo the Hutt. But they’re all newcomers. We would never ever support something that is inherently wrong. You know what happened to our ancestors.”  
  
Larax was curious again, but she was just about smart enough to understand where she was not supposed to speak. Whatever had happened to these people’s ancestors, she was sure they would have brought it up themselves, sometime.  
  


…

  
**_Dorthus Tal Prison, Dorthus Tal Island, Racottia, Sacorria_**  
  
The two representatives from the Ministry of Defence and two admirals of the Sacorrian Navy were summoned for a meeting with Their Leaderships in the Interrogation Room of Dorthus Tal Prison. There was no word from the Imperial liaison officer to CorSec, Kirtan Loor, who was supposed to arrive from Coronet City later that day to join their meeting and, possibly, the interrogation.  
  
The overly serious Comradette Nola Katisver and her workmate, Comrade Jhorn Risant, were not quite sure why they been recruited to this briefing while they had better things to do – comfort their frightened children who were pulled out of the crowd minutes before the news of a possible terrorist attack. Sure, they had risked being demoted if they didn’t appear, but this was one of the times when they wondered what the priorities should have been in the first place.  
  
On the other side of the blast doors, Admiral Gordi Gauree stood by the suspect and the two criminals against Progress and Unity, with her frequent partner in missions for the Empire and secret lover, Admiral Roko Porkley. They had met through their sons, Dak and Glaunder, who had both recently completed the course for agricultural managers at FAIS.  
  
The three prisoners were trapped in energy fields – one Human, one Duros and one Ortolan. Despite this, a couple of Selonian thugs were still holding them. All three looked too much alike – which was what the Ortolan prisoner noticed at some point, too, and got his third stun for that. At this point, however, the military folk were more interested in the Human.  
  
“He does not look like somebody who could orchestrate anything.” Porkley said. “In fact, he looks like somebody who cares only about…the most basic of the instincts, which we, the disciplined comrades, frown upon.”  
  
Just then, Brigada, the intelligence officer, brought the legislators in. Katisver and Risant nodded their heads at Gauree and Porkley and the Drall updated the civilians on the state of things. By this point, the Drall regretted having transferred her much-needed leave to comrade Glisse.  
  
She first pointed to the prisoner Koobalt Nubes. "This one was stunned over using profanities in relation to Saygos and he was making inappropriate references to your daughter, comrade Risant. The other one, err, stunned himself. The last one, the suspect related to the organisation of the bombing, claimed that he was not guilty and he was generally unpleasant to both me and Comradette Prett...Comradette Dadanna Sarkle."  
  
“Thank you for the update.” Nola gave Brigada a thumbs-up. “But what do we know about the causalties? To my understanding, and as per the reporter submitted by Comrade Zhoorka – where is he, by the way…he sure isn’t the only one who’s late today, but for Sacor’s sake, I don’t like him – there were two causalties of the Doloria terrorist attack last night!”  
  
The two admirals shrugged and looked at Brigada again. She turned on the projector and soon holograms of two Humans appeared on the desk before the quarter.  
  
"So, by our understanding, comrade Valorum and the girl – we preliminarily identified her as Doria Vorr – are the casualties you’re speaking of. We think that the Doloria were irritated by Comrade Valorum's views, but there's something odd about it. They are a terrorist group, after all. Why would they be against the views that support their enemies and the bringers of peace – the Galactic Empire and the Sacorrian Triad? But either way, prisoner Nokaarbe is associated with them and we had a tip that he was the Rebel agent we were looking for. Hmmm...Rebels and Doloria…"  
  
"Doria Vorr? That's Tendra's friend!" Jhorn Risant recognised the name. "My daughter is not going to take that well! That girl gave her a ticket for this event and I know how much she wanted to see..." He stopped right before mentioning the name of the suspect. "Brigada, any news on that post-mortem in Curheg?"  
  
"Nothing yet. They don't have very much to use for identification, but we expect the results to be revealed within two days." Brigada crossed her arms.  
  
"Not sorry at all. She had some inappropriate relations with my son!" Roko Porkley pointed to the holo. "And she hangs around our younglings way too much."  
  
Nola Katisver rolled her eyes. "You sure know what inappropriate relations are, Roko." She gave a knowing look to Gordi as well. "And where are your younglings, given that you're so big on discipline? Jan is in shock and he's saying some really strange things, but where are your boys?”  
  
"We sent Glaunder to his favourite resort before this even happened - we did not want poor baby to be anywhere near..."  
  
"Yeah, I know, Roko. Gordi, where is your son?"  
  
Admiral Gauree was getting defensive at this point. "Nola, I thought he was with your son. They were supposed to have a sleepover, weren't they? With Tendra?"  
  
"There is no way I would allow my daughter to have a sleepover anywhere near Dak!" Jhorn Risant looked at Gordi Gauree. "One can see where he got his predator tendencies from. And of course a decent young comrade like Jan was covering up for him!"  
  
Nola liked that. Not many people were saying that about Jan.  
  
"Yes, we can totally see how that happened. Right, Gordi and Roko? Either way, since Dak is not with Jan and, thankfully, not with Tendra, where could he be?"  
  
“Probably waving his his military-mom card somewhere.” Jhorn Risant said, sotto voce. “Just watch him come back home in the afternoon, unaware of what happened to his friends.”  
  
“What did you say, _Risant_?”  
  
“Since when do you not call me by my name, _Gauree_?”  
  
Brigada turned around and let a deep sigh out of her chest. She was now sure – she really, really needed a vacation. And she had to stop these comrades and comradettes from arguing before Their Leaderships’ interrogation and the arrival of Kirtan Loor. Not to mention that she had no idea where Loor was, same for Comrade Zhoorka of CESA.


End file.
